Creative Alchemy

Secrets are toxic and damaging. If you’ve been in a cult you know this and you may also know how secrets can be used to control us when we’re in a high demand situation.

When today’s guest Esther Friedman left the cult she belonged to she took a very firm stance against secrets and I loved talking to her about this during our interview. I related to so...

One of the big takeaways I have from this conversation with Renee Linnell was when she reminded me that shame dissipates as we tell our stories.

When we tell the truth about an experience we feel shame about, that act of speaking up breaks up the shame, the same way a frozen river’s ice breaks up in the spring. Telling the truth is like sunshine and warmth on that...

We all want to belong. As I’ve said previously on this show, we are wired to look for connection and community. That very natural human need is what led today’s guest, Tamara Mathieu, into the Twelve Tribes. Fourteen years later, Tamara and her husband realized they needed to leave what had become a controlling, high-demand situation. One that Tamara would end up writing a book about and te...

Here’s what I was reminded of during this conversation with writer and playwright Dennis Hawkins-Bogle. No one’s going to hand you the opportunity to tell the truth of your experience and tell your story. There is no validation and acknowledgement fairy who’s going to come along and anoint you with her magic wand. If telling your story matters enough to you – if you feel the pul...

When we leave a high demand group, there is a reckoning that needs to happen. As survivors, we need to come to terms with so many things; among them, why we were drawn into the group in the first place and how we were affected by that situation. We need to deal with feelings that might include grief and loss and trauma and guilt. There’s so  much to unpack!

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Kimber Young can trace her Mormon family lineage directly back to Brigham Young, the second president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. The Mormon church, she points out, was her whole life and her whole family was involved. 

And yet, somehow, Kimber was able to begin questioning the church doctrine and dogma while also retaining a sense of her ow...

Vancouver Island comedian Patti Savard also happens to be a transgender woman. She brings the subject of gender transition into her comedy. So the biggest question I had for her was, how do we laugh at something that is often perceived as being a very serious subject?

I think you’ll appreciate her answer.

In the introduction, I me...

Every human appreciates knowing they are not alone. When we have an experience – perhaps one of being in a cult or being an addict or being a single mother – we all want to know we are not alone in that experience. Two of the most powerful and reassuring words in the English language are “me too”.

My guest today, Hanna Etu, works with neurodiverg...

Bella Mahaya Carter is an experienced writer and writing teacher. In this episode she shares how she used the support of an editor to meet that small, 1000 words per month goal as a way to break the enormous task of writing a memoir into small, achievable steps.

In the introduction, inspired by this interview, I talk about thinking outside the box when we are looking fo...

Natalee Bigger Stockdale is a cult survivor and an art therapist. In this episode, Natalee and I talk about the healing power of creative expression for cult survivors, and other survivors of trauma. Among other topics, Natalee points out that when we use visual means of creative expression (painting, drawing, etc.) we bypass the language…

The post Art Therapy for Cult Survivors with Natalee Bigger Stockdale appeared first o...

Christi Christiaens belonged to an immortality cult for 30 years. Her book, Wager on Forever, explores how she was drawn into the cult, how the trio of cult leaders applied the usual strategies to keep their followers on the hook, and how Christi was ultimately able to leave the group. Unfortunately, in order to do this, she had to leave her adult son behind. He’s still involved with the cult as of this recording.

Based on wh...

Maggie Rayner is the author of In Polgamy’s Shadow. She grew up in a branch of the Mormon church that was not polygamist, but that does not mean that polygamy didn’t have an effect on her family. As Maggie shares in this interview, among the many other challenges she experienced as a Mormon child, she and one of her sisters had a very close call with being recruited into the polygamous community of Bountiful, BC in the ...

What happens when we use creative expression to help us heal from a traumatic experience like being in a cult? That's what I'm here to explore in Creative Alchemy.

In this first episode, I share a bit about my story of joining a cult at the age of 22 in 1989 in Vancouver, BC, Canada. And I talk about how the recovery from that experience included a couple forms of writing, including journaling and eventually sharing about my experi...