Beyond The Surface

In this final episode of Beyond the Surface, Sam brings the podcast to a close with honesty about why - including her own experience of chronic illness and what it has meant for her capacity to keep showing up in this way. She reflects on the conversations that have shaped the series, the guests who trusted her with their stories, and what it has meant to hold space for the experiences of people recovering from high-control religious environments. It's a warm, candid sign-off that sits with the weight of ending something that has mattered, while leaving listeners with a clear message: the podcast may be finished, but the work of recovery continues, and every story shared here has been part of something bigger than a single show.

Connect

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out Religious Trauma & Cults

Sammy (Haram Doodles) joins Sam to talk about what it meant to grow up in a Muslim household and the long, complicated process of stepping away from a faith that shaped everything — her identity, her relationships, her sense of what was expected of her. She speaks openly about the grief that sits alongside that kind of departure, the familial pressures that don't simply disappear when your beliefs change, and the particular isolation that can come with being somewhere in between who you were raised to be and who you're becoming. It's an honest, tender conversation about religious trauma beyond the contexts that tend to dominate this space, and a reminder that the ex-Muslim experience deserves just as much room in these conversations as any other.

Who Is Sammy?

Sammy is an ExMuslim atheist creating Haram (forbidden) doodles with and for ExMuslims.

Connect

• Find out more about Sammy here - https://haramdoodles.com
• You can also connect on YouTube, & Instagram

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out Religious Trauma & Cults

Meliesa joins Sam to share what it was like to grow up inside the Two by Twos — a high-control religious group where conformity was everything and the gap between outward appearances and internal reality was vast. She speaks honestly about the psychological toll of an upbringing built around compliance and fear, and the hidden dynamics of abuse that can thrive in environments like this one. What makes Meliesa's story particularly compelling is what she's done with it — she's channelled her experience into creating adult picture books that explore identity and self-acceptance, and the conversation takes a genuinely moving turn when she talks about creativity as a way of reclaiming your own narrative. It's a warm, grounded episode about survival, agency, and finding unexpected ways to tell your truth.

Who Is Meliesa?

Meliesa Tigard, writer, educator, and survivor advocate. Her work sits at the intersection of cult deconstruction, civic organizing, and the long road back to a self that belongs to you.

A survivor of the Two by Two (2x2) high-control religious group, Meliesa is the author of two allegorical picture books for adults: Little Mouse and the Purple Door — an allegorical picture book for adults about leaving a cultic community — and Little Bea and the Golden Key, for LGBTQ+ survivors. Both books have companion healing journals. Her Substack series explores mind control, financial abuse, and recovery for survivors of high-control communities.

She is the founder of FocalPoint Learning Center in Wenatchee, Washington, where she has taught literacy and math for 25 years, and of Confluence Indivisible, a civic advocacy organization.

The through line of all her work is the same: teaching people to recognize when their thinking is being controlled, and giving them tools to think freely.

Connect

• Find out more about Meliesa here - http://www.purpledoorjourneys.com
• You can also connect via Facebook

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out Religious Trauma & Cults

Nicola joins Sam to talk about her experience inside the Osho Rajneesh community, a high-control group that doesn't always get the airtime it deserves and what the process of leaving and recovering from that has actually looked like. She speaks openly about the disillusionment that comes when beliefs you once held close begin to fracture, and the particular challenges of rebuilding your sense of self and spirituality in the aftermath. It's a thoughtful conversation about the role community plays in both keeping people inside these systems and in helping them heal once they're out, and Nicola brings a warmth and honesty to it that makes the harder parts of her story genuinely compelling to sit with.

Who Is Nicola?

Nicola Ranson is a writer and psychotherapist who has worked with survivors from multiple cults and has presented internationally on cult recovery. She has a lived experience of ten years in the Osho/Rajneesh cult in the UK, India, Canada and the United States. Her memoir, A Slice of Orange: loving and leaving the Osho/Rajneesh cult will be published by Unsolicited Press in December, 2026 and is now available for preorder. Nicola was adjunct faculty at National University for seventeen years and provided services for Survivors of Torture, International, San Diego.

Ranson’s writing credits include co-writing the documentary, “Tattooed Trucks of Nepal – Horn Please!” which won Best Script at the Sicily Art Film Festival. Excerpts from her memoir have been published in the anthology Shaking the Tree: Brazen. Short. Memoir, Volumes 3 and 4.

Born in the UK, Ranson grew up in Canada and now lives in California with her husband, film-maker Ron Ranson.

Connect

• Nicola's website - https://nicolaranson.org/
• You can also connect via Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out Religious Trauma & Cults

In this episode, Sam sits down with someone very close to home; her wife, Chrissy for an honest and personal conversation about Chrissy's journey through organised religion, from a confusing early experience of Catholicism to the demands and contradictions of Pentecostalism, and everything that unravelled along the way. Chrissy speaks candidly about navigating purity culture, the alienation that came with not fitting the mould, and the moment she was outed within her church community, an event that cost her a whole network of relationships she had relied on. It's a conversation about the very real personal toll of religious exclusion, and what therapy and self-exploration have looked like on the other side of it.

Connect

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out The Religious Trauma Collective

Brandan joins Sam to talk about what it was like to find belonging in a fundamentalist Baptist community at twelve years old and to be a closeted gay kid inside it at the same time. He speaks honestly about the cognitive dissonance of feeling genuinely loved by a community whose theology told him who he was amounted to sin, and the anxiety and fear that slowly built underneath that. The conversation moves through his experience of conversion therapy, the point at which he realised he couldn't keep forcing the two things to fit, and what it looked like to eventually find a spirituality built on something other than fear. It's a compelling, open conversation about identity, survival, and what it actually takes to rebuild your sense of self and faith on your own terms.

Who Is Brandan?

Rev. Brandan Robertson is an author, activist, and public theologian working at the intersection of spirituality, sexuality, and social renewal. He serves as Pastor of Sunnyside Reformed Church in NYC and is an ordained minister in the United Church of Christ. Known as the "TikTok Pastor," his digital ministry reaches nearly 400,000 followers worldwide.

Robertson has authored or contributed to more than twenty books on faith and justice, including True Inclusion, an INDIES Book of the Year Award finalist. His work has been featured by TIME Magazine, NBC, CNN, and The Washington Post, and he has spoken at the White House, Oxford University, and the Parliament of the World's Religions.

A passionate LGBTQ+ advocate, he was named to Rolling Stone's "Hot List" and Out Magazine's 2025 OUT100. He lives in New York City and is pursuing a Ph.D. in Biblical Studies at Drew University.

Connect

• Brandons Website - https://www.brandanrobertson.com
• Find Brandan on social media - Facebook | Instagram | Youtube

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out The Religious Trauma Collective

In this solo episode, Sam sits with something that doesn't get talked about enough during Pride Month - grief. For queer people who've come out of religious environments, the celebrations of June can sit alongside a very specific kind of loss, and Sam reflects honestly on that tension: the way communal joy can sometimes make private sorrow louder, and why those two things don't cancel each other out. It's a gentle but unflinching episode that makes space for the complexity of being somewhere in between; mourning what was taken from you while also finding your way toward who you actually are.

Connect

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out The Religious Trauma Collective

Jay (they/them) joins Sam to talk about growing up as a pastor's kid, navigating queerness and gender identity within a family deeply embedded in faith, and what it meant to wrestle with all of that while also surviving childhood leukemia. Jay is honest about the toll of living between personal truth and family expectation, and the work it takes to find your own voice when the people closest to you can't meet you there. It's a raw, grounded conversation about identity, religious trauma, and what it actually looks like to start living on your own terms.

Connect with Us

• Connect with Jay over on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/jay.pesas

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out The Religious Trauma Collective

In this solo episode, Sam examines the deeply uncomfortable overlap between domestic violence and high-control religious environments. Specifically, how the same systems that teach women what love looks like also teach them not to recognise abuse when it's happening to them. From submission doctrine to male headship theology, Sam unpacks how religious frameworks don't just fail to protect women from coercive control, they actively provide the language that legitimises it. It's a sharp, necessary episode that pushes back on the tendency to treat domestic violence and religious trauma as separate issues, and reinforces why survivors navigating both deserve support that understands the full picture of what they've been through.

Resources

Australia:

• 1800RESPECT - National domestic, family and sexual violence counselling, information and support. 24/7. Call 1800 737 732 or visit 1800respect.org.au
• 13YARN - Confidential crisis support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. A safe place to yarn, no shame, no judgement. 24/7. Call 13 92 76
• Rainbow Sexual, Domestic and Family Violence Helpline - National telephone support for LGBTQ+ people who have experienced sexual, domestic or family violence. Call 1800 497 212

New Zealand:

• New Zealand Shine - free 24/7 helpline and live webchat: 0508 744 633 / 2shine.org.nz
• Are You OK - free 24/7 family violence information and support: areyouok.org.nz
• Shakti - free 24/7 multilingual crisis line specifically for migrant and refugee women at 0800 742 584

US / Canada:

• United States The National Domestic Violence Hotline - 24/7, free and confidential. Call 1-800-799-SAFE (7233), text START to 88788, or live chat at thehotline.org
• Canada ShelterSafe - sheltersafe.ca — national directory with an interactive map to find the nearest shelter or crisis service by location.
• Hope for Wellness Helpline - free 24/7 for Indigenous Peoples across Canada, call 1-855-242-3310 or connect online.

Connect

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out The Religious Trauma Collective

Elise Heerde joins Sam for a conversation that is equal parts exciting and meaningful; a behind-the-scenes look at the evolution of their organisation and a heartfelt invitation into what promises to be a landmark community event for survivors of religious trauma and high-control systems. They discuss the growth of the RTC, its deepening commitment to inclusivity and to holding space for people from a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, and what makes this upcoming event different — including an expanded international speaker lineup and a dedicated space for attendees to connect and stay connected long after the event wraps. There's also a candid conversation about what it means to grow an organisation in a way that truly reflects the breadth of the community it serves, and the courage it takes to evolve publicly - including announcing an exciting update.

Connect With Us

• Find details about the event here - https://www.thereligioustraumacollective.com/annual-event

• Connect with Elise via her website or over on IG

• You can find out more about Sam on her website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au
• To connect with Sam on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.
• Also check out The Religious Trauma Collective