The Deeper Pulse with Candice Schutter

Turns out the ‘cult’ure of new ageism isn't really all that new, but it is positively alive and well; and its over-emphasis on love & light can blinding. In this episode, Candice speaks transparently about the decade she spent working and teaching in new-age wellness circles. She tells you how she extricated herself from a pseudoscientific yoga cult in 2002, and what it might’ve cost her had she stayed. She speaks transparently about the three years she spent working in the inner circle of an international mind-body fitness organization, and how she struggled mightily to leave despite growing physical discomfort and nonstop interpersonal dysfunction. An addiction to idealism & new age prosperity gospel only exacerbated her feelings of self-doubt and stuckness (because gaslighting is real, y'all). Toward the end of the episode, she describes the life-changing moment when the spiritual scaffolding she'd built her self-worth around finally came crashing to the ground and shares how it led to the most destructive relationship of her life. In between stories, Candice borrows wisdom from cult experts, sharing about about the mechanics of 'culty' cultures and how & why we get so damned enmeshed. You'll learn about love bombing, milieu control, and moral injury; then the episode wraps with a critique of commercialized wellness and the problems inherent in a capitalist 'cult'ure - where mental health and meaning are branded, packaged, and sold. It's jam-packed with cautionary tales & educational content that will help you make meaning out of the relational messes in your life.   

Referenced in this episode:

• We Can Do Hard Things Podcast - Ep. 86 w/ Jen Hatmaker
• BITE Model, by Steven Hassen
• Thought Reform and the Psychology of Totalism, by Robert Jay Lifton
• Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships, by Janja Lalich
• Surviving R. Kelly, Docu-Series (Netflix)

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

In the first episode of the 'cult'ure series, Candice invites us to get real about the relationships and groups we occupy. What does it mean to be psychosocially ‘under the influence’ and why are we humans so prone to surrendering personal agency? Candice shares more about what's challenged her most when it comes to living at the center of her own story, revealing the recent therapeutic ah-hah that led to the creation of this podcast summer series. Spiritual wounds are defined, as well as the Buddhist concept of near enemies and what they have to teach us about abuse of power, specifically in group wellness circles. She challenges the thought-terminating cliche 'there are no victims' and speaks openly about the dangers of idealistic generalizations arguing that often the suppression of pain is far more oppressive than laying claim to victimhood. We unpack the 4-letter word 'cult,' embracing its nuance with an acknowledgment that the dynamics of social control can be both subtle or severe and that, in either instance, they have a measurable impact on human agency. Ernest Becker's work helps us to understand why it is do-gooders are so often the ones making such a goddamned mess of things, and Candice unpacks ‘bounded choice’ - the psychological mechanics of staying put - why it is we stick around even when we shouldn't. The episode wraps with a sneak-peek into the 'cult'ure series gameplan moving forward. This episode is foundational for the conversations to come, so light a candle, pull up a floor cushion, & get thee some headphones! [cue culty music]

Referenced in this episode:

• The Sound of the Genuine, by Howard Thurman
• Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life, by Anne Lamott
• Atlas Of The Heart, by Brene Brown
• Cultish: The Language of Fanaticism, by Amanda Montell
• Take Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships, by Janja Lalich
• A Little Bit Culty Podcast, Sarah Edmondson & Nippy Ames
• Escape From Evil, Ernest Becker

Cult Docs:

• Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief (docu-series) - HBO
• Holy Hell (movie/documentary)
• Wild Wild Country (docu-series) - Netflix
• Keep Sweet: Pray and Obey (docu-series) - Netflix
• The Vow (docu-series) - HBO

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Candice is wrapping up the spring season with a special guest and dear friend, Kim Dawson. Kim candidly shares her personal story and the pivotal moment when her dream of becoming a prima ballerina were shattered due to an ‘emotional injury’ that would linger for decades. She talks about what it was like working in Silicon Valley back in the 80s when blatant misogyny went unchecked and how resentment around her early-life successes eventually led her to make self-sabotaging choices in her professional life. Candice shares how she & Kim met, and they speak honestly about what it was like to work for a personal growth organization where self-sacrifice and codependency were the norms. Candice tells you about the teaching colleague who woke her ass up by setting an example of sovereignty that rocked her world wide-open and why. Kim gives you a taste of her work, leading Candice in an exercise that demonstrates how often what we see in others is what we most need to recognize within ourselves. Sovereignty is defined and discussed, as well as how the shift from 'freedom-from' to 'freedom-with' can help us to reinvent our relationship to the world around us. The episode wraps with a very intimate moment when Kim shares about the recent passing of her mother and how she is re-authoring her life anew.

Kimberly Dawson is the founder of REVOLUTION Business & Life Design. She co-conspires with creative purpose seekers and changemakers to bring their love to business and life. Kim was a strategic innovator in marketing, sales and operations roles with ground-breaking businesses and organizations primarily in the Silicon Valley and Europe. She invested in her own transformative life journey and saw an opportunity to shift from empowering companies and organizations to engaging deeply with individuals. Kimberly earned a bachelor’s degree in communication design with a minor in art and business from Chico State University (summa cum laude). Kimberly’s work has become a powerful platform for designing innovative businesses, co-operating in healthy relationships, and helping people lead lives they most desire. 

revolutionbizdesign.com | IG: @thepointofyou

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

This week’s guest is another long-time friend and business founder, Christy Goldsby. Candice & Christy were in a marketing group together back in 2013 when Christy first launched Honey Mama's to-die-for, artisan-made truffle bars. Since then, the Honey Mama's brand has become a staple at health food stores all across the country. Christy shares how close friendship and a shared desire for better health inspired her to develop this genius superfood sweet treat, and how it all started with a monthly booth at the local farmer’s market. Ten years later, she leads 67 employees and the company has taken on a life of its own. She shares what it's like to found - and lead - a self-inspired business that has become a source of expression and livelihood for so many others. Candice talks about why sovereignty is so critical when it comes to inspiring a creative work environment, and together they hash out how authenticity inspires personal agency. Christy shares how her meditation practice is making her a better leader and that learning how to let-go has become a daily practice. Together they explore conscious entrepreneurship and how a more ‘feminine’ (aka holistic & integrative) approach to business has the ability to up-level innovation and usher in new social paradigms.

Christy Goldsby is the founder of Honey Mama’s, makers of the one-of-a-kind refrigerated cocoa truffle bars changing the status quo for indulgence. A lifelong believer in food as a source of physical and mental wellbeing, Christy founded Honey Mama’s in 2013 as a mission-driven company dedicated to sharing delicious and nourishing treats that also inspire wellbeing and vitality. From her early beginnings at the Portland Farmers Market, Christy has grown Honey Mama’s to a beloved, category-defying line of bars available at more than 3,000 retail locations nationwide and online at www.honeymamas.com.

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Grief has a lot in common with gravity; it's an unavoidable force of life that can knock us to our knees in an instant. Monica Welty knows all about that. In 2013, she tragically lost her newborn son, Harvey; this episode releases on what would've been his ninth birthday. Since then, Monica has been bravely sharing her story and providing others a space to be witnessed in their own experiences of loss. In this episode, she explains why she chooses to grieve such an intimate loss with public transparency and talks about why there are some losses we never fully recover from.  Candice & Monica discuss how grief paradoxically requires we come to terms with deep existential truths while also finding ways to reconnect to everyday aliveness. They wonder at the way we ‘do math’ in order to make meaning out of our losses, and how & when this is helpful. Monica gets uber-honest about the shameful thoughts she had just following the loss of her son, and Candice shares how her current spiritual practice is all about believing in nothing and learning to relax into the mystery of life. The episode wraps with an unscripted moment where Candice shares a story of loss that she’s never before shared publicly.
 

Monica Welty dedicates herself to helping people feel better. After studying psychology and human development in college, she now works in Portland, OR as a massage therapist and health coach. She writes about the complex experience of grief and loss after the death of her son in 2013 in the hopes that, from her honest expression, others will feel less alone. She is mom to Harvey, who would be 9, and his sister and step-sister, both 12.


You can read her unedited blog at www.HarveyTheHero.com, hear more of her story on The Risk! Podcast, and join her & Candice for this year’s literary reading in honor of Harvey on May 5th, 2022 on Zoom.

Harvey's Reading - Thursday, May 5th @ 7pm PST
Meeting ID: 832 4893 5491
Passcode: 505026

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Candice welcomes truth-teller and gifted encaustic artist, Kelly Williams, to the podcast. Kelly shares how a unique and challenging childhood shaped her reliance on self-expression as a means of survival and how, many years later, she discovered painting as an outlet for deep healing and personal transformation. She describes the fascinating, natural mediums through which she works, and how the process of painting offers a therapeutic avenue for the expression of the unspeakable. Kelly now guides students to reveal their secret selves safely, without the risk of unhealthy emotional over-exposure, explaining how art is an object lesson, revealing its maker, and how making a mess (or not) can become a valuable tool for self-awareness and/or social commentary. She and Candice discuss the difference between healthy exposure and performative vulnerability. Candice shares a personal discovery - how trying to be of service to others inadvertently gets in the way of being helpful - and together, they get real about things like imposter syndrome, survivor guilt, and sustaining creative integrity while operating in an online marketplace.

Kelly Williams is a contemporary multi-media artist, painting primarily with encaustic, oils, and acrylics. Her large-scale encaustic abstracts are deeply layered, energetic, and textured expressions of internal emotional mapping. Her figurative work explores the more subtle dichotomy of narrative identity, sensuality, and expression. With a background in psychology and social work, Kelly found art to be a powerful tool in helping facilitate communication around that which is unspeakable. Her approach is an extension of the visual narrative as a method of psychological processing. As a full-time artist, she incorporates similar methods in her own process as well as working with individuals and small groups in a studio setting. Kelly continues to educate and mentor both amateur and professional artists, blending multiple methods and materials with a narrative psychology approach to inform her personal work, group workshops, and private sessions.

kellywilliamsart.com | IG: @kellywilliamsart

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Join Candice for an inspiring dialogue with a long-time friend and coaching client, Karima Borni. Together, they take a philosophical deep dive into self-trust, specifically as it relates to life's dark directives. Kari shares how passage into motherhood triggered a 'primal' response in her body and mind, forcing her to re-author her entire approach to life. They reflect on the ongoing struggle to restore inner authority and embody the soul-self as our center of gravity; naming specific challenges that result when hard-earned identities are threatened by the passing seasons of life. Candice tells the story of a recent job offer, her ambivalence, and how she's learned to discern between fear and intuition. Kari speaks to how she’s been able to trace so much of her suffering back to social conditioning and fears around mortality, and how she’s now learning to approach life with greater equanimity and acceptance. This is a soulful dialogue that circles us back to the earliest episodes of the podcast, reminding us that no matter how much we seek to control life, it's gonna do its thing and continually remind us... trust is an inside job.

Karima Borni is a college dance professor, dancer-choreographer, and scholar in human-animal studies. Her current research is on the development of somatic knowledge through interspecies communication. She holds a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Northwestern University. She currently lives on a farm in New England with her family.

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

Candice sits down with naturopathic physician, Samantha LeVine to discuss individualized care, particularly as it pertains to women’s health. Dr. Sam tells us about the moment when, at age seven, she realized she would become a doctor specializing in women’s health. She describes naturopathic medicine, what differentiates it from a conventional practice, and how regulations vary from state to state. Candice shares how Dr. Sam’s approach was a real game-changer for her own personal journey of health and self-care. She shares about the mysterious stroke-like symptoms she experienced in her twenties and early thirties, and how most medical professionals she encountered failed to take her mental health into account when suggesting diagnosis and treatment. The two discuss other examples of how emotional landscapes can impact physical health, and Dr. Sam emphasizes how essential it is to be physiologically informed when it comes to emotional challenges. Dr. Sam offers a fascinating explanation of how sugar, both positively and negatively, impacts the brain and whether or not there is a difference between medicine and medication. The episode wraps up with some very practical guidance regarding peri-menopausal and post-menopausal considerations. Dr. Sam tells us how to better prepare the body for this 'change of life' using proper testing and then talks candidly about whether or not hormone replacement therapy is a good idea.

Samantha LeVine, ND is a board-certified naturopathic physician practicing general care in Portland, OR.  She’s been in private practice for nearly 20 years and loves to support community members of all ages.  Specialties include women’s health and hormones, thyroid support, nutrition, gastrointestinal complaints, mood imbalance, sleep support etc.  Doc Sam trained in midwifery in graduate school (NCNM, now called NUNM) and loves to really treat the whole person in her approach to healing.  In addition to being a small business owner, Doc Sam enjoys time with her two children, ages 13 and 21, gardening, reading, hiking, dancing, and cooking.

docerenaturopathicwellness.com

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

In a very special episode, and in honor of Transgender Day of Visibility, Candice sits down with her dear friend, Rachel. Rachel speaks about how the pandemic impacted her work as a massage therapist and reflects on what it’s like to live as a trans woman during this time of unprecedented political backlash. She generously shares about why she decided to come out as a trans woman, and the many challenges she has faced along the way. She tells us how therapy and a strong support network carried her through her journey of transitioning and speaks to why, as a binary trans woman, she personally yearns to be received plain and simply as a woman, without all the awkwardness and adjectives. Candice digs into why it is we so often inaccurately conflate cognitive dissonance with safety concerns, and the two discuss healthy alternatives to transphobic projections. They explore how misogyny and internalized homophobia so often lead to violence and pathological enforcement of gender norms, and how legislation (even the bills that fail to pass) are actively endangering LGBTQ+ individuals as we speak. Rachel shares tangible examples of how cis gender folks often do harm by treating trans people differently, and she offers some practical tips for self-awareness in an effort to help cis folks up-level their support - from hollow promises of allyship toward meaningful action.
.

Rachel is a neurodivergent transgender woman. She is a queer, polyamorous, sex positive and staunchly feminist person who holds little space for ideals that seek to dehumanize, alienate, invalidate or otherwise harm the people of her community and beyond. She is passionate about providing a safe, accepting, healing space for all people, all identities, and all bodies.

.

LEARN, SUPPORT & TAKE ACTION

• Transgender Day of Visibility
• GLAAD | Things You Can Do For Transgender Equality
• Human Rights Campaign | Understanding the Transgender Community
• ACLU | Donate to the Legal Fight

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates. 

What on earth does pruning plants have to do with self-care? More than you might expect. Candice talks with ‘plant nerd’ and pruning coach, Monica Maggio, about her experience working as a plant care specialist. Monica explains how consciously carrying for perennial plants fosters self-awareness, empathy, and accountability. Monica gets personal, sharing a watershed moment in high school that inspired her to pursue environmental studies and horticulture. Now, after over a decade of working intimately with clients and their plants, she has uncovered a fascinating overlap between pruning methodologies and how we care for ourselves. Candice is all-in on this topic, admitting how her own 'stuff' has long been reflected in how she goes about pruning her rose bushes. The two discuss what plants have to teach us about trauma and resilience, and Monica walks us through a handful of helpful pruning techniques. Together, they marvel at how each approach provides a useful metaphor for self-development and our place in the natural order of things. Monica continually invites us to turn our attention toward indigenous cultures who have long embodied an interdependent relationship with nature. She references Robin Wall Kimmerer, author of Braiding Sweetgrass, who writes: "Action on behalf of life transforms. Because the relationship between self and the world is reciprocal... as we work to heal the earth, the earth heals us.”

Monica Maggio is a fruit growing expert and pruning coach based in Portland, OR. Monica believes good pruning combines science, art, nature, and nurture in powerful ways that help plants (and the people that care for them) thrive. Her business Core Home Fruit, and newest membership project The Pruning Portal, offer a variety of practical resources to help anyone learn to prune with skill and success one snip at a time!

corehomefruit.com | IG @corehomefruit | youtube.com/c/corehomefruit

Referenced in this episode:

• Braiding Sweetgrass, by Robin Wall Kimmerer

Support the show

The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.

Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates.