Healing After Harm with Heena Patel

Note: This episode discusses sexual assault and gender-based violence at length, including direct references to rape, courtroom testimony, and generational and religious abuse.

People often hold an idea of what a survivor looks like or how they should be. Samira Ghosh has spent sixteen years learning how untrue that is as Director of Advocacy and Client Services at Asian Family Support Services of Austin (AFSSA), and as a Texas state expert witness on trauma and survivor testimony.

We start with the actual mechanics of showing up for a survivor: how intake works, the difference between wanting justice, healing, or to just be heard, alongside exploring the complexities around abuse in higher education and what it means when the person accused is someone's academic advisor, mentor, and visa sponsor all at once,

Samira names the hardest-earned statistic I've heard on this show: healing from sexual violence takes, on average, twenty-three years. We talk about what community owes survivors, including believing without judgment, and not penalizing someone for changing their mind. With her work in a culturally responsive organization, we dive into how the phrase what will people say does so much quiet damage in South Asian communities, the impact of language, and other cultural norms that hinder healing and creating safer environments.

I share my experiences of healing not only my harm, but also ancestral pain connected to abuse with teachers and leaders.

Learn about Samira and AFSSA at www.afssaustin.org
AFSSA's 24H Crisis and Sexual Assault Hotline: 1-877-281-8371

Chapters
03:43 How AFSSA's Intake Actually Works
08:50 Justice, Healing, or Just Being Heard
12:22 When the Harasser Is Your Academic Guru
15:16 Why Survivors Stay With AFSSA for Years
17:33 What to Say When Someone Discloses to You
22:05 'You Are Not Co-Opting My Story'
27:54 Testifying as the State's Trauma Expert
35:53 Storytelling Over a Public Call-Out
43:15 Why Some Languages Have No Word for This
51:18 Feeling Her Ancestors in the Room
01:02:10 10 to 500 in 16 Years

Mentioned in this episode:
Know My Name by Chanel Miller
Maharaj (Netflix, 2024)

Go deeper with the reflection prompt and the themes of this episode on Heena's Substack.

If you're looking for more support on your own journey, learn more and apply to work together.

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Content note: this episode discusses psychological manipulation, coercive control, and sexual exploitation within a high-control group.

Ruwan Meepagala spent two years inside OneTaste, the group at the center of the Netflix documentary Orgasm Inc, and left with a story that refuses to be simple.

He rose into leadership before he was pushed out, and in this conversation he does the thing almost no one does with a story like this: he holds the transformation and the harm in the same hand. We get into why he decided to write a book before he ever joined, why the shame arrived at the end instead of the beginning, and how you actually get hooked - it has nothing to do with being smart. ‘Knowing how alcohol works doesn’t stop you from getting drunk.’

We talk about the one line he wouldn’t cross that got him pushed out, what it took to find his center again, including Daoism and driving an Uber, and the sorting that never quite ends: sifting the gold from the dirt once you’ve left. Ruwan speak of the 'hidden curriculum' - the language of hooking and emotional dependency borrowed from groups like Scientology. Now with the perspective of fatherhood, he shares why family ties, more than intelligence, are what actually protect people from coercive control, and what it looks like to raise children whose emotional needs are met well enough that a high-control group would have nothing to offer them.

Ruwan is a coach and writer and host of the Ruwando Podcast: Psychology for Men with Brains and Balls. His memoir is ORGSM: A Memoir - Inside the Matriarchal Cult of OneTaste.

Chapters
03:08 Writing the Book Before the Cult
10:13 How You Actually Get Hooked
14:34 Why Leaving Was So Hard
18:24 Uber, Acting, and Being Humbled
21:21 Being Special: Wound and Susceptibility
26:22 Family, the Book, and the Fallout
29:02 Who I Brought In
34:35 Why Being Smart Doesn’t Save You
38:13 Teaching His Kids What He Learned
44:56 Sifting the Gold from the Dirt
51:19 Who We Put on a Pedestal

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Mikaela de la Myco was nineteen when she was harmed inside a western tantra teaching space. She was young in years and in her journey, and generous with her trust. She's gone on to become a voice for survivors of harm in wellness and psychedelic spaces. An educator and the caretaker of MA’AT, the Matriarchal Alliance for Accountability and Transparency, she was a lighthouse for me before I spoke publicly. When I found the post where she wrote about her own experience, I was at the point of knowing I would one day tell my story and finding almost no one who had told theirs.

We talk about why harm inside a healing space cuts deep, why disclosure is not the easy part, what it actually takes to build effective coalitions, and what it means to hold survivors' stories with care, including the time a guest asked me to delete our episode, and why that was an easy yes.

We land where Mikaela’s hardest-won wisdom lives: the difference between crisis response and the long game, why ‘restore to what?’ is the question rushed justice skips, and planting seeds for trees whose shade we won’t sit under.

Chapters

05:20  The Dominator Worldview

12:47  Doe-Eyed and Nineteen

22:24  Disclosure Is Never the Easy Part

28:23  When a Survivor Says Delete It

34:39  Crisis Response vs the Slow Game

43:18  What Is Desired vs What’s Possible

49:14  Dropping a Grenade

54:20  Restore to What?

1:07:50  MA'AT and the Long Game

About Mikaela

Mikaela de la Myco serves as a mother, mushWOMB educator, facilitator, researcher and eco-sensual in the plant medicine, womb care and ethics space. She is the caretaker of MA’AT, founder of the citizen-science project Mothers of the Mushroom.

Her open apology letter to survivors
Mikaela's Instagram

Resources

Riane Eisler, The Chalice and the Blade
Deepa Iyer's Social Change Ecosystem Map

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Note: This episode includes a first-person disclosure of rape, and discussion of sexual coercion, sex work, racialized harm in wellness spaces, and the limits of "consent" as it's usually defined.

Amina Peterson has spent more than two decades in one of the most vulnerable rooms there is - the one where people bring the parts of themselves they've been most shamed for. She's a somatic sexologist and the founder of the Amina Institute, and what makes her rare is that she's built actual structures to get ahead of harm instead of only cleaning it up afterward.

We start where she started: as the youngest, darkest, largest, and poorest person in room after room of predominantly white erotic and tantra spaces; and the water ritual that made her realize these places hadn't been built with her in mind. From there, the moment a client's body froze under her hands, and what it taught her about consent: that the version most of us run on was built to hold up in court, and is close to useless for the body.

I share the piece of my own story: the day, years after I left my former teacher, that the words "it was rape" came out of me on a bodywork table, long after I'd reasoned my way to the opposite conclusion.

And Amina walks through the three tools she now treats as non-negotiable: slowing down, the Council of Six, and Authentic Consent, and the test I speak of - how easy is it to leave? When it's hard to leave, that's when it tips toward cult.

Chapters
04:18 · This Isn't for Black People
10:23 · The Moment a Client's Body Froze
12:00 · Consent Is a Privilege, Not a Given
15:10 · "It Was R*pe": When the Body Remembers
19:01 · Slowing Down: Why Practitioners Fly Past
24:32 · Capitalism Out of Our Vaginal Canals
27:20 · The Council of Six
39:18 · Who Holds Your Story?
49:52 · Authentic Consent: The Third Tool
54:38 · Leaving Is Health

About Amina:

Amina Peterson is a somatic sexologist, EroSomatic bodyworker, erotic abolitionist, community curator, and sensual space & medicine holder. She is the founder of the Amina Institute for Embodiment and Healing (formerly Atlanta Institute of Tantra) and appeared as a healer on Netflix's Sex, Love & goop.

Amina on Instagram
Amina's Substack
Fix Your Sex Podcast

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In this episode, I talk with Asha Mahari, whose writings on non-consensual touch and power dynamics in spiritual and healing communities struck a chord when I came across them online.

Asha shares her own story of getting into a relationship with a workshop facilitator in new community she joined, being told it would be monogamous, and then discovering she'd been part of an undisclosed polyamorous dynamic, all without her knowledge or consent.

We talk about how language like "worshipping the divine feminine" and "getting my needs met" can function as a cover for manipulation and objectification and how this man specifically targeted women who were new to the community, spiritually curious, and didn't yet have the relationships or history to recognize the pattern.

But isn't just about one person's behaviors. We dig into what Asha calls "micro-assaults" or the small, body-level signals we learn to override and normalize, and how those normalized moments are often the foundation that bigger harm gets built on. We also talk about Asha's own journey with speaking out, which began from more reactive, less-integrated place, and what changed in her, including her own complicity, that led to her words being received by others.

A note on content:
This episode discusses sexual coercion, grooming, non-consensual relationship dynamics, and includes explicit language and direct references to sexual assault within the context of spiritual and wellness communities.

In this episode, we cover:
How "worship" and "divine feminine" language can be used to justify objectification
Undisclosed polyamory and consent: what happens when "needs met" becomes code for something else
How facilitators can target newcomers who lack community history or context
"Micro-assaults": the small, normalized signals that pave the way for bigger harm
Moving from reactive to heart-centered: Asha's journey with speaking out publicly
Why Asha writes from a place of personal complicity, not just personal harm
Dismantling "inner patriarchy" as a precursor to dismantling systemic patriarchy

CHAPTERS

00:00 Introduction
02:11 Twin Flames & the Divine Feminine
06:12 When Chaos Gets Mistaken for Love
08:55 When Spiritual Language Manipulates
14:51 Poly Without Your Consent
21:01 I Knew Who You Were Talking About
25:03 Micro-Assaults: What We Tolerate
32:49 I Only Write What I've Lived
36:46 Patriarchy & the Divine Feminine

About Asha Mahari:
Asha Mahari is an energy facilitator dedicated to dismantling the 'spiritualization' of patriarchy in wellness spaces. She aims to empower women as they navigate complex issues around sex, relationships and sovereignty.

Asha's Website
Asha's Writings
Asha on Instagram

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In this episode, I sit down with Mischa Byruck, an accountability coach who works primarily with men, including many who've been publicly "canceled", to talk about what it actually looks like to do the work of repair from the other side.

We untangle two things people often conflate: accountability and repair. Mischa makes the case that accountability doesn't require the harmed person's participation or forgiveness, and that doing accountability work in order to get forgiveness means you've already missed the point. We get into why most apologies are designed to make the apologizer feel better rather than rebuild trust, his framework for restoring integrity, and what he calls the "cancellation formula." We also explore how cultural and ancestral patterns normalize harm across generations, and work through a real example from my own experience of an apology that didn't land.

This episode touches on themes of accountability after sexual and relational harm in spiritual and teaching contexts, and references a widely-covered news story involving sexual abuse.

In this episode, we cover:

• Accountability vs. repair — they are not the same thing
• Why doing it for forgiveness means you're already lost
• The cancellation formula: power + victimhood mentality × defensiveness
• Apologizing at someone vs. apologizing to them
• Restoring integrity, adapted from Rev. Brij Feltus
• How cultural traditions normalize harm across generations
• Villainization vs. seeing the humanity in those who caused harm
• Vetting teachers on accountability practices, not charisma
• Why it's never a harmed person's job to manage someone else's accountability

Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
02:37 Accountability vs. Repair
07:09 Doing It for Forgiveness? You're Lost
12:34 The Apology That Didn't Land
16:28 What Heena Needed to Hear
26:02 Getting Good at Fucking Up
28:15 50% on Learning to Fuck Up
32:36 Accountability in Healing Spaces
34:14 The Cancellation Formula
35:04 When Tradition Justifies Harm
39:23 Some People Are More People
40:09 My North Star Is Humanity
46:11 Values Over Good and Bad
50:13 Restoring Integrity: The Framework
56:39 Apologizing At vs. To Someone
01:02:28 Vetting Your Teachers
01:10:08 Who Holds Your Mirror?
01:17:37 Closing

About Mischa Byruck
Mischa is an accountability coach working with men navigating the aftermath of being "canceled" or confronted about harmful behavior, drawing on experience in sexuality, men's work, somatic therapy, and restorative justice.

Mischa's Website
Mischa's Instagram
Mischa's Mentor Rev. Brij Feltus

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In this episode, I speak with Lisa Kays, a practicing licensed therapist about how the harmful behaviors in learning and spiritual communities can show up in licensed mental health spaces.

This isn't an argument against therapy, but a fuller context about the field - from power imbalance of the therapist-client relationship, what it means when a therapist has the power to diagnose, and signs of an unhealthy group environments.

We cover

Why licensure doesn't guarantee safety

How the therapist-client hierarchy can undermine your trust in yourself

What it means when a therapist has the power to diagnose

How group therapy can create coercive attachment dynamics

Pathologizing departure — "I'm worried about you" as a tool of control

Bullying in a professional training space, and the silence that followed

Why so many therapists are trained never to apologize

What consent-based, accountable practice can look like

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
01:42 Therapy & Enabling of Harm
03:51 Licensure Doesn't Mean Safety
06:33 Power Dynamics in Therapy
09:58 Experiences in Group Therapy
12:29 Signs of a Harmful Group
18:27 How Are Those Who Left Treated?
23:28 Coercion & Pathologizing Departure
32:34 When No One Intervenes
43:13 Empowerment & Liberation
45:16 Diverse Paths to Healing

About Lisa
Lisa Kays, LICSW, LCSW, LCSW-C, is a psychotherapist in private practice. She hosts the podcast "What If Nothing Is Wrong With You" and writes about power dynamics, consent, and accountability in mental health spaces.
Lisa's Website
Lisa's Podcast
Lisa's Blog
Lisa's Instagram

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In this episode, Heena talks with psychotherapist and author Lena Derhally about narcissistic abuse, how to support those experiencing harm, and the communal narcissist.

Lena shares the experience that became the foundation of her life's mission to help others recognize narcissistic patterns and push for real accountability. We talk about why emotional and psychological abuse can be as damaging as physical abuse, why survivors often are "a shell" of who they were, and what it actually looks like to support someone who isn't ready to leave. Heena shares her own experience of the people who showed up for her and how they did it.

Lena introduces the communal narcissist. the spiritual leader, healer, guru, or "good person" whose good deeds aren't about helping anyone, but about power, control, and admiration. We get into forms of narcissism, love bombing, and why the same person can seem wonderful in public and harmful in private, and the role of bystanders versus upstanders.

We cover

• Lena's experience and how it became her life's mission
• Why emotional abuse can be as damaging as physical abuse
• The communal narcissist: how "doing good" can be a vehicle for power
• The other forms of narcissism: collective, malignant, and covert
• Love bombing and the whiplash of two versions of the same person
• What to say (and not say) to a friend who isn't ready to leave
• Why it took Heena five years to leave
• From bystander to upstander
• How privilege shapes who has the safety to speak up
• Teaching the next generation to recognize gaslighting early

Chapters
00:00 Introduction
02:00 Why Narcissism Became Her Mission
10:52 Five Years, Three People
19:43 Supporting a Friend Not Ready to Leave
27:04 The Communal Narcissist
32:38 The Narcissism Spectrum
38:23 Whose Responsibility Is It?
41:48 From Bystander to Upstander
47:08 Teaching Kids to Spot Gaslighting
50:54 Closing

About Lena Derhally
Lena is a licensed psychotherapist and author whose books explore narcissism and narcissistic abuse, including The Facebook Narcissist and My Daddy Is a Hero.

Lena's Website
Book on Narcissism that Helped Lena
Book on Narcissism that Helped Heena

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In this episode, I sit down with Elisha Tichelle — threshold guide, nervous system alchemist, and one of my own mentors — for a deep and wide-ranging conversation about power, fawning, sovereignty, voice, and what it really means to heal.

We talk about the idea of "sacred rage" and why timing matters when it comes to speaking your truth publicly. We explore fawning patterns — both the active kind (people-pleasing, acquiescing) and the repressive kind (pushing against everyone just to prove you're not complying) — and how both can quietly run our lives long after we think we've "moved on." We dig into what power actually is: not influence or external validation, but life force, capacity, and the ability to be fully present in your own body. And we talk about what healthy mentorship and community can look like when it's built on mutuality instead of hierarchy — including a useful framework borrowed from the world of BDSM.

This conversation is personal for me. Elisha was a pivotal support for me as I found my way back to my own voice after leaving a controlling teacher, and this episode reflects a lot of what that journey has looked like.

In this episode, we cover:
What "sacred rage" means, and why it's not the same for everyone
The difference between acceptance, resolve, and capitulation
How victim consciousness can persist even when we're "fighting for our power"
Active vs. repressive fawning, and how both show up in healing journeys
Power as life force, capacity, and electricity — not influence or control
Why proximity to power isn't the same as having your own
A framework for non-hierarchical power dynamics
What it looks like to build community and mentorship without pedestals

A note on content:
This episode touches on themes of spiritual abuse, recovery from a controlling teacher/guru relationship, and power dynamics. Please take care of yourself while listening, and feel free to pause or skip around as needed.

About Elisha Tichelle:
Elisha Tichelle is a threshold guide and nervous system alchemist whose work focuses on helping people reconnect with their own power, capacity, and life force.

Connect with Elisha
Elisha's Instagram
Elisha's Substack

Mystical Aunties Podcast

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Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
01:43 Sacred Rage & Inner Architecture to Hold One's Journey
05:39 The World as Mirror: Internal vs. External Change
11:14 Victimhood, Power, and Gathering Support
17:34 Fawning, Voice, and Other People's Agendas
26:20 Capacity and Power and Influence
34:45 Proximity to Power: The Guru Trap
38:00 Redefining Teacher-Student Dynamics
43:45 Beyond Hierarchy: Power as Dynamic
49:10 Role of Teacher
50:51 Permission, Individuation, and Healthy Group Dynamics
57:48 Closing & Where to Find Elisha

Welcome to Healing After Harm, a place for nuanced conversations about pathways to healing after abuse within learning and community environments.

In this inaugural episode, host Heena Patel shares her personal story with abuse and her why for this podcast.

Main topics:
Heena's personal experience of grooming and abuse by a former teacher
The process of coming out publicly and navigating cultural taboos
Healing practices: inner child work, ancestral healing, nervous system regulation
The importance of community support and collective repair after harm
Navigating opposing perspectives on healing and accountability

Links
The blog post where I spoke publicly for the first time
Instagram for Podcast
Podcast Youtube Channel
Heena's Instagram
Heena's Substack

Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction to Healing After Harm
00:57 Self-Care and Pacing
01:54 Mutual Cooperation & Resources
02:27 My Story - Abuse, Healing, Speaking Publicly
08:38 My commitment and why