Unconditioning Love

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What do you do when the place that once kept you safe no longer fits who you are becoming?

Rosemary was born in Connecticut and raised in the 2x2s, the same church I grew up in. She professed at 10 years old, standing up beside her younger sister at a convention. For years, meetings were her safe place: the one space where everything was quiet and she could speak and truly be listened to.

But slowly, she began to feel restricted in what she could share. She noticed the perfectionism, the shame, and the messages about mistrusting the self. She realized she could no longer bring her authentic spiritual thoughts into the room. Within this past year, she made the brave, conscious choice to step away.

This conversation is told from the messy middle, and that is exactly what makes her story so powerful. She is the first guest I've had on the podcast who has very recently left, and sharing while you are still in it takes a whole different level of courage.

In this episode we talk about:

• Growing up in the 2x2s and why meetings felt like a safe place
• Leaving slowly and consciously, rather than in one big moment
• Perfectionism, shame and feeling restricted in what you're allowed to say
• Shifting from a God outside of us to a God within us, in others and in nature
• Why our relationship with ourselves is our relationship with God
• Moving from obligation to free will when it comes to taking time for yourself
• A simple grounding practice for coming out of the head and home to the heart
• Why inner-child work can feel different for those of us raised in high-control religion
• How the body carries our relationships and what it is trying to tell us
• Finding new community after leaving, one step at a time
• What unconditional love means: putting yourself first, and giving and receiving without obligation

Mentioned in this episode:

• Unitarian Universalist congregations (uua.org)

If this episode spoke to you, share it with someone who is standing in their own in-between. And if you'd like support on your journey of coming back home to yourself, you can find me at lydiakeeney.com.

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What if the hardest seasons of your life were part of a game your soul chose to play? And what if you could learn the rules?

This week on Unconditioning Love, Lidi talks with Ketty. Ketty was born in Paris to a family from Guadeloupe and raised by a single mother, who gave her an unusual gift: the freedom to choose her own path. She became a professional dancer and a marketing strategist. She spent ten years running a youth association in one of the toughest areas outside Paris, and later became a life coach and NLP practitioner in the Netherlands.

Then, after COVID, came a burnout and a deep depression. She had been trying to please everyone, and it brought her to the edge of wanting to disappear. From there Ketty began six months of going inward. She became a "detective" of her own life. She met the ancestral trauma of slavery she had carried without knowing it. And she discovered that loving herself was what finally let her love other people without conditions.

In this episode:

• How a childhood that felt harsh turned out to be her mother's greatest gift
• The moment she heard: "I didn't do it, you did it to yourself," and how accountability replaced victimhood
• Rumi's "you are not a drop in the ocean, you are the entire ocean in a drop," and what it means to live as the ocean
• Viktor Frankl's space between action and reaction, and how Ketty uses it to meet racism and ignorance with understanding instead of a fight
• Why words are spells, and how what we say shapes the field we live in
• Going back to the child who made the first choice, and thanking them for keeping you alive
• Why falling back is not starting over ("when you fall back, you jump further")
• Spiritual bypassing: why knowing something in your head isn't the same as your body living it
• Ketty's advice for anyone in the dark right now: start with one small thing, like making your bed, and build momentum from there

Chapters:

• 00:00 Welcome, and Ketty's story from Paris
• 02:04 Dance, giving back and ten years with youth
• 03:30 Moving to the Netherlands, burnout and depression
• 08:49 Talking to God and becoming a detective of her own life
• 11:20 Returning to her roots and ancestral trauma
• 13:04 The Game of Life and How to Play It
• 14:45 The ocean in a drop
• 16:49 The space between action and reaction
• 22:00 A childhood dream: "everything is already here"
• 23:25 Mirror-based therapy and her new school
• 34:29 Words as spells
• 40:10 Life as a game we play together
• 48:03 A bridge for anyone who can't believe life could be a game yet
• 52:26 Falling back, and why the nervous system needs time
• 57:08 Spiritual bypassing: connecting mind, body and soul
• 1:02:05 Coaching from lived experience

Resources mentioned:

• The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovel Shinn
• Conversations with God by Neale Donald Walsch
• Man's Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl
• Rumi

Connect with Ketty: Instagram Facebook

A note of care: this episode includes talk of depression and suicidal thoughts. If you're struggling, please reach out to someone you trust or a local crisis line. You don't have to walk through it alone. 💛

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In this first video episode of Unconditioning Love, Lydia goes solo — her scheduled guest couldn't make it, so instead she opens up about what it means to be in the messy, uncomfortable middle of transformation.

Using the image of a caterpillar dissolving into goo before it can become a butterfly, Lydia talks about why "stuckness" isn't a life sentence — it's a phase. She shares what's coming up in her six-week coaching container (currently in week three with five students), reflects on her own journey out of church life and into a therapist who finally "spoke her language," and offers real, accessible tools — like EFT tapping and meditation — for staying grounded while everything familiar dissolves around you.

If you've left a system, relationship, or belief that no longer fits and you're standing in the unknown wondering when it'll make sense again — this episode is for you. It won't, yet. And that's okay.

In this episode:

• 0:00 – Going solo & why video, now — Lydia's first video episode, and her intention to keep editing minimal so the conversation stays real and human.
• 0:48 – What "holding space" actually means — The podcast's purpose: unconditional love as a doorway back to your own light, not just surface-level "consciousness."
• 2:44 – Inside the 6-week coaching container — How week one (telling your story in 6–10 minutes) and week two (building your "movie script") help people find their through-line.
• 4:22 – The caterpillar goo metaphor — Why being stuck is temporary, why it looks different for everyone, and why pulling yourself out too soon can do more harm than staying in it.
• 6:14 – Building a new "safe" — What to do when the people and places that used to hold you don't anymore — and why leaving doesn't erase what you gained there.
• 8:33 – Finding a therapist who speaks your language — Lydia's own search for the right support after leaving the church, and a therapist's insight that this shift was inevitable all along.
• 12:20 – Why discomfort ≠ lack of peace — Untangling the belief that peace has to feel comfortable, and why movement — even shaky movement — is the real signal of growth.
• 16:38 – Tools for the goo — EFT tapping, meditation, and how Lydia is using her own move within Argentina as a live practice in tolerating the unknown.

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For most of his life, Aaron knew God as a father figure far off in the sky — watching, judging, keeping score. That's the God you often inherit growing up in the 2x2s (also known as "the Truth," or "the church with no name").

In this episode, Aaron and I trace what happened when that image finally cracked open for both of us, and what came through it: God not as a distant patriarch but as energy, everywhere, in everything, in us. We talk through the image that we're each a drop, and God is the ocean, which means we were never separate from it to begin with. We were never waiting to earn our way back in. We were carrying it the whole time.

We also talk about something that doesn't get named enough: what it does to a person to grow up not just believing you're unworthy, but surrounded by an entire community quietly carrying that same belief about themselves. It's not one father figure handing down judgment; it's hundreds of people agreeing on it together, which makes it feel less like a belief and more like just how things are.

From there we go deep — into the things that happened to us that felt senseless and cruel at the time, and what it means to find them happening for us instead. Not spiritual bypassing. Not "everything happens for a reason" as a platitude to swallow the pain faster. Something slower and more honest: meaning that gets made, not handed down.

If you grew up inside a system that told you exactly who God was and exactly how far short you fell of Him, this conversation is for you.

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Episode summary

Kara grew up four generations deep in the 2x2 religious group — and she left. In this conversation, she takes us into what it was like to grow up in an environment where love had to be earned, where God was someone to fear rather than know, and where the words "I love you" were rarely spoken out loud. Kara shares the one bright exception in her memory — her great-aunt and uncle, deeply "in" the institution, whose home was somehow still full of fun, humor, and love — and traces the slow, honest unraveling that began the moment she became a mother.

In this episode

• What it was like growing up believing love was conditional and God was mostly to be feared, and how rare it was to hear "I love you" at home.
• The one exception: her great-aunt and uncle, fully committed to the institution, whose house was somehow full of laughter and warmth 
• Becoming a mom to twin daughters as the pivot point — the moment Kara started counting all the rules her girls would inherit, she couldn't stop thinking about what it would mean for her girls to carry those same rules into school and everyday life.
• The small acts of loosening the reins — starting with how her daughters were allowed to dress outside the community — as her first quiet steps away.
• A gutting moment at a church convention: after one of her daughters lost all her hair during a health crisis, another woman told Kara her daughter "didn't deserve to be at convention with short hair." The place Kara had believed was the safest for her children turned out to be where they were treated as less than.
• Kara never bought into the exclusivity — but for years, she went along with it anyway.
• The pivotal conversation: her daughter showed her a tattoo, and the two of them talked openly about the possibility of leaving the meetings someday — Kara admitting she didn't believe the meetings were the only way. That conversation cracked something open.
• The fear that came with finally deciding she had to step out — not fear of leaving the religion, but fear of telling her husband, and not knowing whether their love was conditional too, or whether it could survive her walking away.
• Where Kara is now: reconnecting with God in her garden and through worship music — a quieter, freer kind of faith than the one she grew up with.

Featured song: "Hope Says"

A closing note

Kara's story doesn't end in anger — it ends in a garden, with worship music playing, and a faith she gets to choose for herself. If any part of her story is your story too, we hope this episode reminds you: love was never supposed to be something you had to earn.

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What if the thing you thought was loyalty was actually control?

In this solo episode of Unconditioning Love, Lidi shares years of consciously healing through one of her deepest limiting beliefs: I am worthy by how much I help people. She traces how that belief showed up as the rescuer — A.K.A. running into the fire to pull people out, whether anyone asked her to or not — and what it cost her to keep living that way.

From there, she opens up the conversation on loyalty, naming it for what it so often really is: love plus control. Because if we're honest, how can any of us truly know what someone else needs? That question becomes the hinge of the episode, as Lidi lays out the difference between the rescuer and leadership — and why leadership, not rescuing, is what actually creates lasting influence.

This is a conversation about letting go of the fire, trusting people with their own path, and finding out what's on the other side of needing to be needed.

In This Episode

• Years of consciously healing through the belief that she needed to save other people, and what finally made it loosen its grip
• Naming the limiting belief underneath it: "I am worthy by how much I help people"
• What the rescuer actually looks like day to day — A.K.A. running into the fire to pull people out
• Reframing loyalty as love + control, and the question that unravels it: how can we really know what someone else needs?
• The difference between the rescuer and leadership mode
• Why leadership means moving forward and stepping boldly into the new, doing what's right regardless of whether everyone follows
• Influence vs. control — why one is sustainable and the other isn't
• What it feels like to stop rescuing and start leading

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In this short reflection, Lydia explores how growing up in high-control religions taught many of us to live outside of ourselves, to mistrust our inner knowing, outsource authority, and disconnect from our own hearts.

She reflects on how hymns and teachings often functioned like subliminal messages, subtly training us to doubt our instincts and place trust in leadership, rules, and external voices rather than within ourselves. Over time, this separation from self became normalized—and even spiritualized.

This episode gently unpacks what it looks like to begin the journey back to ourselves.

Lydia shares why this return isn’t something that can be forced, scheduled, or achieved through another set of “musts.” Healing doesn’t happen through legalistic thinking, timelines, or pressure. Instead, it unfolds slowly, organically, and in its own rhythm.

At the heart of this episode is an invitation: to trust your wholeness, exactly as you are right now and to let your reconnection to yourself flow in the way it needs to.

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In this episode, I’m joined by Julie Jancius, host of the Angels and Awakening podcast, for a heartfelt conversation about faith, divine connection, and spiritual evolution. Julie shares her personal journey of growing up within the Catholic tradition and finding her own intimate relationship with the divine beyond religious structure.

Together, we reflect on how miracles are often quieter than we expect, how they unfold through presence and openness, and how we can soften our resistance to receive what is already trying to reach us. This conversation isn’t about striving or proving anything, but about remembering, listening, and allowing.

If you’ve ever wondered whether miracles are reserved for a select few, or if they can exist within ordinary moments, this episode offers a gentle reframe and an invitation to see your life through a more spacious, trusting lens.

Here is the link to connect with Julie and her beautiful offerings & click here to connect to her podcast over on Spotify or simply search "Angels and Awakening" on your podcast app and you'll find it.

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In this episode of Unconditioning Love, we wrap up the Tangled Up mini-series, where we have been exploring women’s experiences in the 2x2 religions and how leaving has transformed their relationship with identity and self-expression.

Yvette Hughes shares her journey of embracing her naturally curly hair within a culture of conformity. Growing up in South Africa’s coloured community during Apartheid, Yvette faced pressure to straighten her hair to fit societal and religious expectations. Her story highlights the beauty of self-acceptance, the quiet rebellion/beauty of staying true to herself, and the freedom she’s found since leaving the church.

Thank you, Yvette, for sharing your beautiful story with us.

PS: I used the help of Chat GPT to bring these show notes together

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Unconditioning Love – Tangled Up (Episode 3)

In this episode of Tangled Up, we delve into an excerpt from Cherie Kropp’s life story and explore the profound impact of hair, traditions, and questioning authority within the 2x2 high control fellowship.

Cherie’s poignant reflections reveal the tension between blind adherence to tradition and the courage to choose compassion and truth over rigidity. From navigating tender-headed hair battles to questioning the theological basis of women’s roles and appearances, Cherie shares how she sought clarity and truth through study and logic, despite resistance.

We discuss themes of:
•Breaking free from guilt and shame perpetuated by man-made traditions.
•The power of questioning practices and beliefs that do not align with love or scripture.
•Choosing compassion over compliance, especially in parenting.
•The emotional toll of navigating fallacious reasoning and the pursuit of Biblical truth.

Cherie’s courage to challenge the status quo, seek answers, and forge a path of authenticity provides insight for anyone navigating the complexities of leaving high-control systems.

Read the full excerpt from Cherie Kropp’s life story: Kropp – Cherie Berry.

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