The Divorcing Religion Podcast

Dr. Gillie Jenkinson - Post-Cult Counselling
Divorced: Fundamentalist Christian cult

Gillie Jenkinson, PhD, is a cult survivor, accredited psychotherapist, international speaker, and Director of Hope Valley Counselling. For over 25 years she has specialised, as therapist and researcher, in the challenges faced by those who have experienced coercive, cultic and spiritual abuse.

Gillie’s book ‘Walking Free from the Trauma of Coercive, Cultic and Spiritual Abuse: A Workbook for Recovery and Growth’ will be published by Routledge in May 2023 and is available for pre-order.

In this episode, Gillie shares her experience of being involved in a cultic group and her healing journey afterward, including becoming an expert in coercive control.

For more from Gillie, join us at CORT2023.

FIND GILLIE:
https://www.hopevalleycounselling.com/writing-media/walking-free-workbook

Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Lois, Hayley, and Amy.

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference now 50% off here https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/register with discount code SPECIAL50

Tickets now available for CORT2023: https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/

Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcast

Follow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: 
Mastodon: [email protected]
Twitter: https://twitter.com/divorcereligion
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_counsellor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligion
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.

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Today’s guest is Marie Lerch. I started following Marie when she made social media posts about her own deconstruction - while remaining married to a current pastor.

Marie was raised by her grandmother until age 13, at which point she entered Canada’s foster care system. After 3 years in foster care she met her husband, and they’ve now been married 27 years.

Today, Marie shares about Divorcing Religion while remaining happily married to her Christian husband, stressing the importance of communication and the help she received through Internal Family Systems therapy.

FIND MARIE

https://lovemaven.ca/

https://twitter.com/Kootenaygirl69

https://www.facebook.com/Mamalele

Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Peter, Lois, and Hayley. Every dollar helps.

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference now 50% off here https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/register with discount code SPECIAL50

Tickets now available for CORT2023: https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/

Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcast

Follow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: 

Mastodon: [email protected]

Twitter: https://twitter.com/divorcereligion

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_counsellor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORT

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligion

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbie

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.

Support the show

Jimmy Snow was Born in the Dirt

Guest: Jimmy Snow

Divorced: Mormonism

Today’s guest is internet personality Jimmy Snow, formerly known as Dear Mr. Atheist and Mr. Atheist. Jimmy is now the executive producer of The Line, a channel for skeptic-minded call-in shows.

On today’s episode, Jimmy dishes about growing up in a Mormon family and what it was like to Divorce Religion and grow into himself. 

FIND JIMMY:

https://www.youtube.com/@qnaline/about

https://twitter.com/JimmyASnow

Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Peter, Lois, and Hayley. Every dollar helps.

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference now 50% off here https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/register with discount code SPECIAL50

Tickets now available for CORT2023: https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/

Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcast

Follow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: 

Mastodon: [email protected]

Twitter: https://twitter.com/divorcereligion

Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_counsellor

Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORT

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligion

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbie

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.

Support the show

Dr. Coco Owen - The Courage to Doubt

Divorced: Seventh Day Adventism
Dr. Coco Owen is a licensed psychologist who has a private practice working with people recovering from religious trauma and in various stages of deconstruction. She grew up Seventh-day Adventist in Southern California and went to Adventist schools from kindergarten through college—including a two-year stint at a church boarding school. 

After a deep crisis of faith during her last year of college, Coco became an atheist and left the church completely. That began a long and sometimes painful psychological, spiritual, and creative process of recovery and self-discovery that culminated in her becoming a clinical psychologist and published poet. 

FIND Dr. OWEN:
 www.cocoowenphd.com 
Instagram: @cocoowenphd

Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Lois, Hayley, and Amy. Every dollar helps.

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference now 50% off here https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/register with discount code SPECIAL50

Tickets now available for CORT2023: https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/

Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcast

Follow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: 
Mastodon: [email protected]
Twitter: https://twitter.com/divorcereligion
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_counsellor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligion
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.

Support the show

Chris Shelton - Scientology Survivor

Divorced: Church of Scientology

My guest today is author, consultant, anti-cult activist, podcaster, YouTuber, and former Scientologist Chris Shelton. A member of Scientology for 27 years, of which he spent 17 in the Sea Org, Chris left Scientology in 2012, and in 2015 published his book Scientology: A to Xenu.

Today, Chris shares what it was like growing up in Scientology, signing a billion-year contract, and eventually learning that he had devoted his entire life to a cult.

FIND CHRIS:
Chris Shelton's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisSheltonMsc
His book, Scientology: A to Xenu, is available here:
Paperback: https://goo.gl/yYIl2t
Kindle edition: http://goo.gl/K51ySi
Audio edition: http://goo.gl/1yvlYS

Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Lois, SatX, Carol, CMM, RL, and KD. Every dollar helps.

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference now 50% off here https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/register with discount code SPECIAL50

Tickets now available for CORT2023: https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/

Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcast
Follow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: 
Mastodon: [email protected]
Twitter: https://twitter.com/divorcereligion
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_counsellor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligion
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.

Support the show

Connie Baker - Christian Codependency
Divorced: Fundamentalist Christianity

CW: Sexual abuse, Christianity

Connie A. Baker, MA, LPC is a Licensed Professional Counselor who specializes in recovery from religious abuse. Connie’s life mission is to educate, validate, and advocate for religious abuse survivors. In 1990, she suffered life-shattering spiritual abuse and had NO ONE to talk with about it. She has since created a number of resources to help others recovering from spiritual abuse.

Connie’s book is called TRAUMATIZED BY RELIGIOUS ABUSE: Discover the Cultures and Systems of Religious Abuse and Reclaim Your Personal Power. She’s also created some card decks related to deconstruction and reconstruction. In this episode, we discuss Connie’s history and how Christians are groomed for codependency.

Find Connie:
Website: https://connieabaker.com/
Card deck: https://question-mapping.com/ 

Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Lois, Hayley, and Amy. Every dollar helps.

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference now 50% off here https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/register with discount code SPECIAL50

Tickets now available for CORT2023: https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/

Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcast

Follow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: 
Mastodon: [email protected]
Twitter: https://twitter.com/divorcereligion
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_counsellor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligion
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.

Support the show

Seth Andrews 
Magical Thinking & Misinformation
Divorced: Christianity
 
CW: U.S. politics
 
Seth Andrews is a former evangelical and Christian broadcaster who now hosts The Thinking Atheist…one of the most popular podcasts and online atheist communities in the world. The Thinking Atheist is not a person. It is an icon encouraging all to reject faith and pursue reason and evidence. 
 
Seth has authored five books, including his latest offering, “Christianity Made Me Talk Like an Idiot.” He also hosts a second podcast, "True Stories with Seth Andrews."
 
In this episode, Seth and I talk about how religion primes us for magical thinking in other areas of life.

Find Seth:
https://www.sethandrews.com/
https://www.thethinkingatheist.com/
https://www.truestoriespodcast.com/

Join Seth and I in person, this May, at the Western Canadian Reason Conference happening in Calgary, Alberta. https://wecanreason.com/

Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Lois, Hayley, and Amy. Every dollar helps.

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference now 50% off here https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/register with discount code SPECIAL50

Tickets now available for CORT2023: https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/

Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcast

Follow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: 
Mastodon: [email protected]
Twitter: https://twitter.com/divorcereligion
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_counsellor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligion
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.

Support the show

Mahrs Schoppman - The Colonization of our Bodies
Divorced: Evangelical Christianity

Mahrs Schoppman is a queer & trans somatic psychotherapist with a private practice based out of his home office in the redwood trees of Occidental, California. Mahrs specializes in working with the queer community and with those who live with the embodied traumatic impacts of growing up in an oppressive religious environment.  

He is passionate about walking with people on their journeys of reclaiming embodied knowing, sensation, emotional range, and vitality as a means of recovering from the learned dissociation that comes with restrictive religion.  Mahrs facilitates therapy groups for queer survivors of religious trauma and is in the midst of writing a book about his experiences and ideas around religious trauma.  

On today’s episode, Mahrs shares his gripping extimony about coming out as a nonbeliever and member of the LGBTQ+ community, and how his own experience informs his private practice.

For more from Mahrs, join us at CORT2023.Tickets now available: https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/
FIND MAHRS: https://therapywithmahrs.com/
Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Hayley, Lois, SatX. Every dollar helps.

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference now 50% off here https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/register with discount code SPECIAL50

Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcast

Follow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: 
Mastodon: [email protected]
Twitter: https://twitter.com/divorcereligion
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_counsellor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligion
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.

Support the show

Isaiah Bell - From Cult Survivor to Composer
Divorced: Evangelical cult “The Move”

CW: CSA is mentioned in this episode.

Isaiah Bell is a Canadian tenor, writer, composer, and artist who grew up in Canada in an evangelical cult. I recently had the opportunity to attend his one-man, cabaret-style opera called “The Book of My Shames,” which he describes this way:

“I’m a good and happy modern gay, thanks very much... But there’s this other me that’s at odds with all that; this tender part that has been left behind in the dark. Shame maintains the gap between us. So I’m reaching out. This is my Rosetta Stone between two halves of a broken heart.”

In this episode, Isaiah and I discuss some of the challenges of growing up fundy and trying to integrate ourselves into the larger culture – which can be especially hard as a member of the 2SLGBTQ+ community.

Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Lois, SatX, Carol, CMM, RL, and KD. Every dollar helps.

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference now 50% off here https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/register with discount code SPECIAL50

Tickets now available for CORT2023: https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/

Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcast

Follow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: 
Mastodon: [email protected]
Twitter: https://twitter.com/divorcereligion
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_counsellor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligion
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.

Support the show

Jessica Barksdale - Family Secrets

CW: CSA, sexual coercion

Author JESSICA BARKSDALE has written 16 books, including novels and poetry, with a short story collection coming out this year. She currently teaches a course for UCLA Extension on novel writing. The subject of Jessica’s most recent novel, What the Moon Did, resonates with stories I’ve heard from clients in my counselling practice.

Themes in this book include adolescence, vulnerability, coercion, and family secrets, with the underlying message summarized as: No matter how we try to hide our pasts, the truth finds its way to the surface, sometimes in devastating ways.

Many of us raised in fundamentalist religious families felt the pressure to keep secrets in order to protect reputations. One thing we didn’t know about, though, was the concept of consent.

ABOUT JESSICA:
Jessica Barksdale’s sixteenth novel What the Moon Did was published February 2023 by Flexible Press. Her short story collection Trick of the Porch Light is forthcoming in 2023.  She’s published two poetry collections: When We Almost Drowned (2019) and Grim Honey (2021).
She taught at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California and continues to teach for UCLA Extension and in the online MFA program for Southern New Hampshire University.

Website: www.jessicabarksdaleinclan.com

Support this podcast on Patreon (starting as low as $2/month) and get access to bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/janiceselbie Thanks to my newest patrons: Lois, SatX, Carol, CMM, RL, and KD. Every dollar helps.

Recordings from the Shameless Sexuality: Life After Purity Culture conference now 50% off here https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/register with discount code SPECIAL50

Tickets now available for CORT2023: https://www.religioustraumaconference.org/

Subscribe to the audio-only version here: https://www.divorcing-religion.com/religious-trauma-podcast

Follow Janice and the Conference on Religious Trauma on Social Media: 
Mastodon: [email protected]
Twitter: https://twitter.com/divorcereligion
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Wise_counsellor
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ComeToCORT
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DivorcingReligion
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@janiceselbie
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/wisecounsellor/

The Divorcing Religion Podcast is for entertainment purposes only. If you need help with your mental health, please consult a qualified, secular, mental health clinician.

Support the show