Shunned after leaving the Geelong Revival Center, Jodie shares her journey from the insular world of fundamentalist faith to a more expansive and authentic sense of self. She reflects on the love and community she once knew, alongside the rigid expectations and lack of critical thought that shaped her childhood. Candidly exploring the pain of shunning and the challenge of rebuilding relationships, Jodie offers a powerful story of resilience, healing, and the courage it takes to reclaim identity beyond the confines of a high-control church.

Who Is Jodie?

Born & raised in high control pentecostalism (GRC, of 'pray harder' and Vic Inquiry fame!), 4 generations deep. Jodie left in her 40s with her family. Her dad was a pastor who spoke up about bullying within ministry, and they got kicked out because they had them stay in their home. They suffered some extreme shunning & witnessed some impressive hypocrisy in the church. Now out for almost 3 years and thriving.

Connect With Us

• Connect with Jodie over on 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 The Religious Trauma Collective

I would like to begin by acknowledging the traditional custodians of the land on which I live and work, the Gundagara land and people. I pay my respects to their elders, past, present and emerging, and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people.

I also want to acknowledge the traditional custodians of the lands on which you, our listeners, are joining us from today.

I recognize the deep connection that first nations people have to this land, their enduring culture, and their commitment to the preservation and care for their country. This land was never ceded, and it always was and always will be Aboriginal land.

Hey there, and welcome to beyond the Surface, the podcast where we explore the stories of people who have survived religious trauma, left high control occult communities, and are deconstructing their faith.

I'm your host, Sam, and each week I'll talk with individuals who have taken the brave step to start shifting their beliefs that might have once controlled and defined their lives. Join us as we dig into their experiences, the challenges they've faced and the insights they've gained.

Whether you're on a similar journey or you're just curious about these powerful stories, you're in the right place. This is beyond the surface.

Welcome, Jodie. Thanks for joining me.

Thank you for having me, Sam.

I'm excited. I always feel so nice when I chat to other Australians.

It's like chatting to someone who feels like home because it's like, you know, I love chatting to people internationally, but.

It'S just like, nice and homely. Hearing an AUSTRALIAN ACCENT.

Southwest Victoria.

Farm.

It's a very.

So, yes. So usually I say, where in the world are you? So, Southwest Victoria. What's the weather like there now? Freezing.

Oh, awful. Last day of winter, so it's looking good. And we're right on the coast, so it's always very windy.

Oh, is that nice, though?

Oh, it's like paradise. But we have Victorian weather to keep us hot.

So, yeah, I think for people who are not in Australia, Victorian weather is not a good thing.

When we say that four seasons in one day, basically, yes.

Beautiful. Okay. So, as you know, because I know that you listen to the episodes, I like to start these episodes with a very, very broad, vague question.

Where does your story start?

It would start with my grandparents, my mum's parents. So when she was nine months old, she was their firstborn.

They were told about our church, which is the Geelong Revival center, and they were told about World War iii, and they were terrified for this little child of theirs. So they had friends who were Catholics who had Been converted. So my grandma didn't want to be told by a Catholic that she was wrong.

But they ended up joining this church and they had another five children and so it's all I've ever known basically. My dad actually came along as a 16 year old. He was very intelligent teenager but was just looking for more to life. Basically he was witness to.

And so my parents met in church, got married. So I'm like, I was fourth generation because my grandparents were saved and their parents. So it's basically all I ever knew.

So I was born and raised in Melbourne. Do you want me to keep going? Yeah, cool. Okay. So I was, I lived in a really happy family.

It's kind of stuff I'm realizing now I assumed everyone in our church had this. But yeah, the older I get, the more I realized I was really fortunate. My parents had a happy marriage.

It was my sister and I, she's three years younger than me. My dad had a good job, so we never lacked for anything. They valued our family time.

So every weekend it was just a wholesome, it was really wholesome way to grow up. Basically we had this community. Our church was our whole life. Like we didn't have friends outside the church, anyone who ever came to our house.

And there were lots of. We had a very open door policy. My parents were very hospitable. So we often had visitors that were only ever from our church.

Like we had school friends but we didn't do anything outside of school. They'll basically we needed them.

So we weren't lonely during the day at school but our whole life, like any meeting we were at every meeting, we're at every outing. It was like all we knew and it was a really wholesome life. It really was. Like we had a happy home life, my parents had a happy marriage.

So I thought I'd hit the jackpot. I was, I felt very privileged and all the glory for that was because of this church we're in.

Like everything I had was because God gave it to me basically.

Yeah.

So I think we might pause for a second and just go because a lot of people are going to have absolutely no idea who the Geelong Revival center are, particularly international people. What sort of church were you growing up in?

It was fundamental Christianity. It was funny. People used to ask that and we're like, oh, you know, like it was. We didn't really have a name for it.

There was actually a podcast done on the Geelong Revival center and ironically every different assembly had a different name.

Right.

I don't even think I knew that.

You won't find them online. There's your first red flag, I think. But no, we're, we're basically it was very much we stuck to the King James Bible.

The foundations of our faith or our church were that you must receive the Holy Spirit and the evidence of that was speaking in tongues and full immersion baptism. And if you didn't have those two things you weren't going to make it to heaven.

Yeah.

There was one leader of the church, that's why it was called the Geelong Revival Center. The head was in Geelong in Corio of all places. So like God's elect on earth, we're in Corio in Geelong.

And if you know Corio, it's like another red flag. But anyway, so we were quite like there's probably at its peak.

It started how far do we go back in the 50s and then we split away from a bigger group.

Yeah.

And that group were like backsliding everyone else. Any other Christian basically were backsliders or lukewarm.

Right.

Hostels. But we had the truth and we were really strict and we weren't even allowed to associate with others who weren't branches from our church.

Yeah.

Because when you said like we didn't really have any other friends, my first thought was like did you not because you're in a bubble or were you not allowed to have any other friends outside of that group as well?

Really? We weren't allowed but it, it was like we don't have rules. We have guidelines for your spiritual well being.

Okay, so rules.

Yeah, yeah, basically. Yeah. Right. But it's for your own good. So like. Yeah, but you would, why would you choose to not do it? Because that's not good for your salvation.

So yeah, that was a small. In short, fundamental Pentecostal Christians ended up having assemblies all over the world. In the islands, in India, colonization.

Look, I have issues with that now but like now that I've had time to deconstruct I see how problematic that was. But we were saving the world and basically yeah, we were the only one true church. Which is classic cult 101, right?

Yeah.

I mean what did you think of it when you were a kid and like a young teen? Like what did you think of this whole thing?

I was fully in. I, I loved my life. My whole life was my church. It felt wholesome. I had the most beautiful community around me, like minded people.

I wasn't hurting anyone. Like I fully believed it and I fully believed that all the good things in my life were because of this church.

And because we were doing God's will, I was. I didn't start to question things, honestly, I'm almost ashamed to say, until, like, my late 30s. I was in. Until I was 42, so.

Because it was my whole life, and it is a. I'm. I'm very careful not to say it was all bad, because it wasn't. When you agree with it and until you start seeing cracks. Yeah, it's just all about.

For me, it was all about. I felt safe, I felt peaceful. I had a community, and I had a happy home life.

And I've come to learn, like, even with my husband, not everyone in the church had a happy home life. I thought everyone did. And I also had a huge extended family. I haven't mentioned that, but my grandparents, my.

My granddad, my papa went on to become an elder in the church, and they had six kids. So I had this huge extended family. We were all very close, so. And I had great friends in the church.

In my late teens, I lost a few friends to the world. Yeah, they. They fell in love or they just wanted to live. Right. Because we didn't drink, we didn't smoke, we didn't go to parties.

Yeah.

Dance all, like, all that stuff. So. Yeah.

There's a weird dance concert rule from grc, isn't there?

Do you know what? I was actually, it's funny you mentioned that. I was watching my daughter. She was in her.

Her school production of Footloose last week, and she was one of the main characters. She's 15. And I got quite emotional watching her. It was so beautiful. She was dancing a little hard out. She's singing.

And then I got quite emotional for me, and I'm like, I was never allowed to dance. I didn't dance. Like, we wanted dancing at our wedding. We wanted this barn dance. Like, can you get more wholesome? No, we just.

It was like a gateway to sin.

Right.

But, I mean, it's biblical, right? Like, there's a time to mourn and a time, as they say in Footloose.

I was like, isn't there a proverb or something about dancing?

Yeah, they kind of portrayed that in Foot List. I'm like, why did I never use that one? Because. Because I was a good girl. I didn't want to push any boundaries. I never did.

Yeah. Right.

Okay.

I mean, and it's such a.

Like, I always joke that I think churches have just got shit backwards because they think that, like, sex, drugs, and rock and roll is like the gateway out of the church. But most of the Time. It's like nature and self reflection and reading, like critical thinking and it's like all of basic things. And that's more like.

If I was to survey all of the people that I've had on the podcast, I'm not sure that sex, drugs and rock and roll are any of the gateways out of the church.

No.

So it's just, it's humorous to me when things like, you know, concerts and.

Music and dance are the things that they're restricting of all.

But even at the time, that wasn't such an issue to me. But I think I had a happy life and I really was like. And I am now a chronic people pleaser. My parents, like, my parents are awesome.

No shade on my parents at all for this upbringing I had. They thought they were doing the best for us and we did have a great life. But I just. And I still am struggling with this.

I never wanted to disappoint them.

Yeah.

My dad never yelled. Like, they never yelled. They were very wise, beautiful parents. But I felt God was watching me at all times and I never wanted to disappoint anyone.

I just wanted my whole thing. And genuinely, like, this wasn't a show. I just wanted to be a blessing.

I wanted to be, we would say, edifying, like leave people better than you found them. Like you just want to say something that's going to make someone happy or build them up. That was, that was me.

I was quite a quiet kid and quite a quiet teen.

Yeah.

But I only ever wanted to be like a good example. So no, hopefully that wasn't too annoying as. As a team. But we moved over actually the day after my last year 12 exam, we moved from Melbourne to.

To the UK. My sister was 15, I was 18 and we moved over there.

They needed a pastor in the UK and my dad was British, so we moved over there and he became a pastor. Right. So I feel like that I don't know if my life would look different if we didn't have that.

I think because another thing about the church, people married young because no sex before marriage, so you gotta. But, well, and we weren't really encouraged to have careers as women. That's a whole other thing.

Yeah. I was about to say, I mean like marriage is put on a pedestal. Like your job as a young woman is to get married and have babies. Right.

Like that's your sole purpose.

That's your w. Yeah, absolutely. Winning souls and being a good wife and mother. That's basically my worth.

Yeah.

And again, I'm so grateful for my parents and their wisdom in that, I feel like we lived a really good life within these boundaries. We moved to the UK and I think my dad realized I was 18. There weren't many men over there, like, we had to marry within our church. And I was.

I was related to most people. So, like, that's fraud. Yeah. The pool was not huge.

Yeah.

And moving over there. He encouraged me to. I was allowed to go to uni, which most girls weren't encouraged.

So dad.

My dad had gone to uni, so that was quite controversial. And he encouraged us to travel as well, which, again, probably wasn't.

I mean, also, as a pastor, that's risky to like.

Yeah.

But like, encourage you to go and do those things.

Things.

Yeah. Well, in hindsight, my dad did break the mold.

Right.

A few. Which was probably his downfall in the end. Which. We'll talk more about that. But he was. He was just a very wise man. He was very loved.

He's still alive. I talk him about him in past tense.

Yeah.

A very wise man. He was very loved within our church because he was gracious and wasn't lawful.

And in the last few, probably even decade in our church, there were a lot of minion pastors that were very lawful because, you know, the world's getting darker, so we need to get tougher. And my dad didn't fit that mold and people loved him for it. But. Yeah. So I was very fortunate that we moved to the uk. I got a great job.

I loved my job, almost a career, but not really. And I was just waiting to get married. But, Yeah, I was 23 and still on the shelf. Had been asked out by a few brothers.

It's about four years too late. Jody.

No, honestly. And I'll tell you, that messed with me. Like, all my friends were married. It. It really. It did a number on me, on my self confidence. I had it again.

I've only kind of unpacked it in the last few years, but I developed a really pretty serious eating disorder in those years. I was bulimic for six years. And at the time, I felt it was because I had zero self worth. Like, I just wasn't. I didn't assume anyone wanted me.

But now I see that was a control thing, too. That was something I could control.

Yeah.

Whereas the rest of my life felt completely out of control.

Yeah.

Like, out of my control. Like, I couldn't ask a guy out. They had to ask us. Yeah. Sorry. And I couldn't go out with anyone outside the church. And I remember saying to My mum.

I'd just been on a big world trip and got home and my little sister started dating a guy and I was like, I'm like, I'm disgusting. No one wants me. It was pretty awful. I said to Mum, I don't believe I'm ever going to get married. And she's like, well, God's promised. Which was.

She said all the right things, but I was 23. I already felt like I was good for nothing and. But even then, that wasn't enough to make me consider leaving. Like, I just. I would have been.

I would have been more prepared to be single and never have kids. Like, leaving was just not an option. It just was never an option.

Yeah, and I imagine, like, was part of that because, you know, and I hear this so often and I mean, I didn't get married until I was like, you know, 26 or something like that. And I also had that moment, like, years where I was like, this is never gonna happen. But it was always my fault.

Like, it wasn't the church's fault, it wasn't God's fault, it wasn't anybody else's fault. It was like there was something in me that was like repelling all of these men. Right. Like, it was my sin, it was my brokenness, my. It was my fault.

Yeah, I internally.

Same for you.

Sure. Yeah. And look, I had one beautiful older lady in our assembly say to me, just make sure you don't leave it too late.

Like, yeah, like I have any say in this love. Like, I have to just sit here and wait. There's nothing I could do.

But, yeah, look, and in a late, in later years, this really worried me for my daughter. I've got two boys and a girl. And this was a huge part of me thinking, what am I, what am I offering my kids with this? What are we doing to our kids?

Yeah.

Like, the pool in that. In that church is getting smaller and smaller and smaller. And like, what if my daughter doesn't find someone there or ends up in an unhappy marriage?

Which is so.

Yeah.

So common because a lot of people, you have to settle. Yeah, it's what.

Like, I've got friends my age that have never been asked to be married and are now single and they've missed their opportunity to have kids. And I think, who am I to do that to my kids? Like, you can't help who you fall in love with. What if you fall in love with someone?

Yeah, you can't control that.

But anyway, and so throughout, like, while you're in the uk, and you are, like, doing very worldly things like travel and go to uni and all of that sort of thing.

Thing.

Who was God to you? What was your faith like during that period of time?

Ah, still everything.

Yeah.

So I just. Still then. And I actually didn't end up going to uni. I ended up getting a traineeship and.

Right.

Kind of learned on the job, which was a blessing. No, no. God was just everything. Like I would say in my testimony that.

And probably more after I got married, but there was nothing in the world that could tempt me because I knew God had a plan for me. And so I. I saw a good marriage modeled in my parents.

So I just expected that, like, probably very naively, I was like, no, no, God's got that in hand for me. And so he was still like my conscience. And I did feel like I had. I felt peaceful.

And I think again, now that I'm unpacking this, I think I am naturally an optimistic person. But I truly believed still then that everything good in my life was because I was following God.

Yeah.

And I was living the right way. So even then, like, I mean, it's.

The power of indoctrination as well, which is that, like, why would you believe anything else as well? Like, you'd never had anything else presented to you, modeled to you, or said to you.

So, you know, I sort of, like, balk at the word naive because, like, what else were you supposed to think during that period of time? Nothing else was presented to you.

Yeah. And. Yeah. What is that? Confirmation bias. So I would go looking for things to confirm. And I worked with.

I had some good friends actually at work who are still my friends now from the uk. And one of my friends say, everything you touch turns to gold. And I would say, yeah, that's because I have God in my life.

And look, I was a zealot, but not to the point where I would go to people, hey, by the way, you're going to hell, you need to come along. But because I. I always felt uncomfortable with that. But I would subtly. Everything was to the glory of God.

And if a friend was struggling, I'd be like, you know, like, we could pray. Like, we could pray for you. So I was a zealot.

Yeah.

But I tried to be a really kind one.

Yeah. I mean, it's like I used to. I even sort of, like, say with the.

The person who, like, showed me, like, the gospel, the person who, like, led me to being saved, quote, unquote. I used to. I always have said that. She showed me the love of Jesus rather than, like, fear based. Like, if you don't do this, you're going to hell.

And, like, as you're talking, that's the phrase that's coming to mind is like, that one that is, like, thrown out in church spaces to, like, go out and be the light in the world.

That was.

That was coming to mind.

Yeah. That was the edific. Edification. Yeah, I did. I just wanted to be, I know, positive and hopeful and. Yeah, I think. I believe that was all because I'm.

Yeah, look, I'm still unpacking all that. I think I am just a naturally optimistic person. But. Yeah. So we continue. And I ended up. I did get married. Yes.

My husband was traveling from Australia and we met and we're celebrating 20 years, so thankfully it worked out well for me. We're coming up to our 20th year, so luckily it worked out well for me. And. And. But we had to move back.

I live in Warnable at the end of the Great Ocean Road in Victoria. That's because that's where he was from. And we wanted to stay in the uk. There was a smaller assembly there, but that's just not.

You just didn't do that. You had to go where the men went. So we moved back here. We asked. We even asked if we could stay because everybody wanted us to stay.

We wanted to stay, but our pastor was like, no precedents will be set. So we moved back here. And lucky for me, I love it here. Like, I honestly, it is paradise, but with Victorian weather. So it worked out well for me.

I love. I love the ocean, I love the beach, and I love raising kids here. But, yeah, didn't have any choice in it.

Yeah. And. And so, like, what impact did that have? And also, how did church life change now that you had, like, you were married, like, you would.

You would, like, reached the peak. The only other step above that is to have babies.

Well, now, like, to prove that I could be a good wife and mother. So I worked here for a little while and then fell pregnant with our first.

Yeah.

And quit my job, of course, because that's what you did. So we got a mortgage on one wage, and I was quite happy doing, like, I was quite happy with that. That's fine.

But I ended up, like, just having things land on my lap. Like, I got freelance work when I was pregnant. I was a graphic designer, got freelance work. And that merged or somehow morphed into photography.

And people just kept asking me. And again, it was, oh, the Lord just keeps placing all this stuff in my lap and so it's never your.

Like, you never get any of the benefit of that.

No, no, no, no. It was never about me. But I, I developed this beautiful little photography business. Kids at the small town. Warnable's the best.

It's full of the best people. Small town, word of mouth is king. And I developed this little photography business. So I'm raising my children, I'm a stay at home mom, proudly. And.

And then I would, I never put my kids in daycare. Like we weren't allowed daycare. So we were trad wives, basically.

Yeah.

I was like, this is sounding mighty familiar.

Yeah, I know. I'm like a failed trad wife. That's my story.

Successful one, depending on the perception.

Yeah. But like, and because it's a like visual medium, I had an Instagram account for my photography and Facebook account, which again, social media.

No, just. No. But we were. I've always been quite lucky.

The three assemblies that I lived in Melbourne, the uk and here I've had really good pastors, I'm not gonna lie. Yeah, I got, I had probably the best of the bunch and they were quite.

Well, our assembly here in Warrnambool towards the last few years was called the Backslidden assembly because we're a bit loose. And he, he was okay with me having social media as long as it was for work. So.

But every, every time I posted a picture or did anything, it was like, am I being a good testament? Am I being a blessing? And so like every post was like, I've just put the kids to bed, they're napping. So now I'm working.

It was like everyone needed to always know that I was a first. Yes.

Right.

About what I was projecting to the world. So even then, like in every aspect of my life, it's always like, am I being a blessing? Am I being a good testimony?

Is this going to hinder people getting saved? Like, that's a lot of pressure.

Yeah. I was like, that sounds exhausting. And so like, what. How did you feel throughout all of this? Like, did it actually.

Did you notice the exhaustion at this, at the time, or do you just reflect back and see it?

I reflect back and say, but I just thought I was the luckiest person in the world. Honestly, I did. And, and I still do.

I just had this little business that I loved that I meant I could stay home with my kids and then Adam, my husband, would get home and I'd quickly go out and photograph a family during sunset. And I was meeting all These beautiful people. And yeah, it was.

There were so many levels to this, but we could never have afforded to go and see my family in the UK on one wage. We just wouldn't have been able to do it. So for me, I saw that as the Lord, because God the Lord blessing us so that we could go see our family.

Yeah.

Gymnastics, we played. Make sense.

It's like I had to justify it. And I didn't talk about the work in the assembly. I didn't talk about it because I know, I knew people were opinionated about it.

Yeah.

And I was so paranoid of being called a working mother. I was so, like, honestly, everything I posted was like, this is my little side hobby. Like, it was never a business.

And I created this awesome little business. Yeah, it was. No, it's just everything. It's a lot of pressure. It is a lot of pressure. More, even more exhausting than the time.

It's the pressure we put on ourselves as women in that church is immense. But it was also kind of part of my doing because I was meeting like some of my friends now. Excellent, excellent humans I met through work.

And I was starting to be like, hang on, I know some really awful people in our assembly that are spirit filled and, you know, have the truth. And I'm meeting all these people that aren't spirit filled. So they're. They're not right with God.

Yeah.

And they were the kindest, most beautiful people I'd met. And I'm. So that cognitive dissonance of that.

Yeah.

That was kind of the start of my undoing. Really.

Yeah.

Who am I to say? I've got the truth. And. And that's a whole other thing that I'm very careful not to criticize people's beliefs because a work in progress with that.

But the whole, like, speaking in tongues was like the foundation of our church. But I don't believe it necessarily makes people better. And that's contrary. But yeah.

So anyway, yeah, that was like, having that little job was probably. And I had a really supportive husband who was like my biggest cheerleader. And I knew that was rare. So I felt very lucky.

I don't even know if I answered your question.

Yeah, that's okay. That's all right. Half the time, once the question's out of my mouth, I don't remember what I've asked. Anyway.

So asking me what it was is a fraught exercise. But as you sort of say that, I think the biggest thing for me is it's not about beliefs, it's about behavior.

And I know that that's a big thing that we're talking about at the moment with the Victorian inquiry and things like that.

And it's, you know, in places like this, it's the moral superiority that they feel they have because they have the right answers, they have the only truth, all of that sort of thing. But as you mentioned, speaking in tongues.

I want to know how you feel about that now after the fact, because I'm assuming you were that spirit filled woman.

Yeah. 10 years old.

Yeah.

So how do you feel about that now?

I feel nervous answering this because it is so controversial because. Yeah, it was about. And I'll tell more about my story.

So it is quite controversial, I feel, to talk about it, but I just don't believe that it guarantees that people are better humans. I just, I just don't. And I have, I'm a. Packing a lot of that, which is a big deal for me to talk about it because I still have so many people.

I love that it is fundamental.

Yeah.

To their being right with God.

Yeah.

I just, I don't see proof of that.

Yeah.

I just, yeah. I've seen too many awful people and I think self righteousness to me is the ugliest human trait in the world. I really do.

Yeah.

And from my experience, any place that claims to have the monopoly on the truth and I just, I just don't see much good coming from that. I really don't. So I have a complex relationship with it, to be honest. That I'm still.

Yeah. It's complicated and there's so many layers to so much of the. That we've all been through in these spaces, in high control spaces.

And, and it's not simple, it's not easy to unpack. It's complicated. There are like intense emotions and experience that are attached to a lot of this stuff as well. So it takes time to unpack.

Yeah. And I mean I only left less than three years ago. And even like I even find myself because it.

Part of it's whether I actually believe it or it's just indoctrination and instinct because that's all I've ever known. But even like being nervous about this interview.

Yeah.

Ask me would have been like, oh, I need to pray about it.

Yeah.

And so even.

Well, I feel like I still have that knee jerk reaction sometimes.

And I don't feel that's bad. Like I think I still believe there's more to like, I don't know. But I feel like it's healthy to believe in something bigger than ourselves.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's. It's a lot. It takes a while to unpack that. I feel like anything I say now I might look back on that in six months and go, oh, you had no idea.

Like, you've come such a long way.

Yeah.

But I mean, I think that that part of that is just allowing, like, growth. I was about to say evolution. I was like, that will out of people.

But like human evolution and change and growth and we are supposed to grow as humans.

And, and I think sometimes the difficulty in high control spaces like that is that you don't grow mentally and psychologically because you are not allowed to use your brain typically to, you know, critically analyze and think about things. And so it's growth stunting as well.

And so you leave that space and, you know, having a different thought six months later is actually just a normal human experience.

I. I've only really given myself permission to do that this year. This year I'm 44.

But my favorite, one of my favorite quotes, I love Tim mentioned and he says, like, you need to take your beliefs out onto the back porch and whack them with a cricket bat.

Yeah.

And I hadn't been able to do that. And even like when we were in the church, I. We joke often. Look, I used. We loved our pastor. He's a good guy.

He's just a bit stuck, powerless, whatever. But he used to say, particularly in the last few years, I'll get through. Like, we. We saw some crazy stuff the last few years.

But he would always go, don't overthink it. Keep it simple. It's like a few of us in the assembly would look at each other and like, yeah, right.

It was just no critical thought, no space for like. He didn't encourage us to read anything other than the King James Bible.

Yeah.

So critical thought was just not one of the tools we had in our arsenal. It just wasn't.

Yeah, yeah.

And even less for women in those spaces, I find.

Yeah.

Heck, yeah. Yeah. Well, so this was part of our undoing too. And so the fact that I can talk about this now, it shows that I've.

I've worked on myself and I go to a counselor because I have some really deep rooted, outspoken woman shame.

Yeah.

So that's part of our story. I don't know if, if you want me to go into this, but again, part of our unraveling. Sorry.

I was in my late mid-30s, just wanting to do everything right, wanting to be the perfect wife, perfect mother. I have three gorgeous children. They're amazing. No credit to us. They're just good humans. Like, we felt like things are going really well.

Happy marriage. These three little kids in paradise. And my husband had a lot of long service leave. And we just, we were like, we just wanted to be used by the Lord.

We were, we were zealous. So we put our hand up. We were asked to go out in a kind of missionary, I suppose, job. Yeah, missionary at Intonga. Oh, yeah, the islands.

And we're like, that's a bit of an adventure. Let's. We just wanted to be useful to God. So we did two, three months stints in Tonga.

And part of being used in our church was you had to leave your kids at home. And we had just seen so many bad experiences that bad for the kids and not great for the people that.

So we were like, no, no, we don't do this without our kids. So we, we paid for the kids to go, which was fine. Again, wouldn't have been able to do that if I didn't have my job.

Yeah.

So we took our kids, we had six months of adventures in Tonga. Felt like it was a really. We loved the place. We loved the people. It was, oh, look, I have problems with it now.

Like, how do you feel about being, like, being white people going into that space?

Because I thought that about Mike, my, you know, four week mission trip to Fiji, which is a colored and Christian nation, as my like little whitey, white 19 year old self.

Yeah, look, I have many, many issues with this now. I've just. I'm doing a TAFE course. I'm doing community service this year, and I've learned more about colonialism.

I had to unpick my culture and indigenous experiences in this area. And I'm deeply disgusted by colonialism, but that's a whole other topic. But I think we just felt like we were on, like, doing work for the Lord.

Yeah.

And so we got. We got encouraged to move over there. And we're adventurous. We. We actually were in a category 5 cyclone while we were over there. Jeez.

The roof of our house ripped off. It was wild. But we've always been. Well, that was an adventure. We kind of. For the kids. We frame everything as an adventure rather than trauma. So.

So we're like, this could be a great. And even my dad, he was. He's very wise and he's like, are you sure? Are you sure you want to do this to your kids? We're like, it'll be fine.

It's an adventure. We were young and stupid, so we made plans to do that. Like, we had a very happy life here.

But we made plans to do that because of the crazy church rules. We weren't allowed to tell anyone, which was really hard to like sell furniture and stuff when you weren't allowed to. It was that reasoning. Oh, just.

I don't know.

That's a very bizarre rule.

Well, in the end, I'm like, look, I've got to sell furniture. And the fact that I was on Facebook marketplace was a problem. But I'm like, mate, no one uses the trading post anymore.

Like, people just don't do garage sales. They do Facebook Marketplace. So it was already an issue that I was on social media. Right. I'd already been, I'd already been flagged that.

Yeah, you're telling the social media. So there were already people watching, unfortunately. And it came right to kind of near the end.

And I thought, okay, so I'm in this small town, a lot of people know me and us now in this small town. For me to just disappear would be weirder than me just putting up a post saying, I'm shutting down my business, we're moving to Tonga.

So I did up this post.

I had some photos that a friend had taken of our family, did a little slideshow, put up a little post, and I got my dad to check it, I got my husband to check it. I got a friend to check to make sure there was nothing controversial in it. Yeah, just clap. Because I knew people were watching me.

I knew they didn't like that I had a business and I, I was on social media. I didn't fit the mold. Even though everything I did, I was trying to be a blessing and a good testimony.

Yeah.

And so I posted that. And the next day my husband got a phone call. He's like, I've got to go talk to our pastor. And I still remember this so clearly.

I got home and he's like, we're not moving. We've been told we're not going anymore. And the next minute, the container arrived on the front lawn with, oh my God, the container.

And it just broke. It broke me. There's no other way to say it. I just. Because everyone knew we were leaving by that point and then to be told that we weren't.

And he couldn't argue it. It was so, so damaging for both of us. Like, I just felt like a pin up. Worst mother, worst wife. It was shy. It was so shameful.

And I've been thinking lately too, it was so damaging for my husband as well, because at the end of the day they were the head of the house. So all the blame, he's like, no, no, it's my fault, obviously, like, and he didn't say it, but my wife said, out of control. That's on me.

Yeah.

So it was deeply shameful for both of us. Oh, we. But we stayed. Like, it was never an option to leave because our whole life was in this church, like, all our family.

Yeah.

And so we stayed, but we completely lost our zeal. I couldn't give my testimony. I just felt like, who am I to tell anyone how to live their life? I'm an absolute failure. Yeah, it was.

Yeah, it was pretty. Particularly when my whole life all I'd ever wanted to be was a blessing. And to know that, well, not only are you not a blessing, you're a disgrace.

Like, you are not fit to be used. So that was a pretty tough time for the family.

We, like, we're really well supported, but it caused problems for, like, I think my dad wasn't happy about, like, it was. It was pretty controversial.

Yeah.

At the time, but, yeah, it had a pretty big impact on us.

I mean, how can it not, though? Like, that's heartbreaking.

And so. Oh, there's a word that I'm looking for and I can't find it. I feel like it's on the tip of my tongue.

I mean, it's so emotionally manipulative and damaging. Like, that's really what it is.

You know the worst part of it, I couldn't tell anyone outside the church because how do you. Like, how do you explain that to someone? Like, oh, no, no, no, no. I'm an absolute failure as a wife. I'm a bad testament. I didn't fit the little box.

Yeah.

And so I had. I shut my business down. I just completely shut it down and disappeared off the face of the earth. I really did for a little while.

And then my husband said to me, I'm supportive of you shutting it down if it's what you want, but if it's just. He's pretty much like, don't let the bastards win.

Yeah.

So when I was ready, I opened it up, but I could never tell anyone why. We didn't move until we've left. And I'll shout it from the rooftops. I don't care, because it's wild. But, yeah, look, did it. It did a number on me.

And. And even, like a year later, I was women in our church, too. That was the other thing. We were not allowed to speak in the church.

Like, with no women in Positions of power at all in our church. Like the biggest job you could have, besides being a pastor's wife, I suppose, was.

Which you weren't allowed to say anything anyway, was to look after child mining, after the child mining roster. And I, I was given that job. And even in that, I'm like, I can't. I can't do this. I'm not a good example. So.

Yeah.

But, yeah, it took me a good year. We went over to the UK to see my family and I had some good. We call it fellowship. So it's encouraging. Talk with.

I remember this one night, there were like six of us. It was. It was tiny. It was only a few of us. And we talked about overcomings we'd had even then. Just wanted to be a blessing.

And I just mentioned privately that I was still struggling with. We called it. Oh, the words escape Me start CC Condemnation. So I was struggling. It's basically shame.

Yeah.

I was still struggling with condemnation over that, which was. I still felt ashamed.

Yeah.

And they were just really encouraging the girls that were talking to me and they'd all been through stuff. And I got home and I was feeling really good. So I got up and finally gave a testimony after a year. Yeah, like, I felt really healed finally.

Like I'd had some good fellowship. Yeah, Being really healed. And as soon as the meeting finished, my pastor's like, I'm really sorry, we need to go chat in the car.

So he pulled my husband and I to the car and he's like, so we need to go to Geelong to speak to the guy in charge.

And this private chat that we'd had, one of the girls had mentioned it to her husband, how good the chat was and mentioned that I was still struggling with condemnation and rang up, he rang up the pastor in charge and so I had to go. And so even I. I was told off for being shamed, like, for feeling shameful. I got in trouble for like, oh my gosh, still feeling shameful.

So that was a wild time. So that kind of just pushed me right back down again.

But I can't imagine why. Like, I'm sitting here and I'm like raging on your behalf.

Like, life for women. And the other thing was, so there was one guy in charge of the church. Sorry, I'm really rambling. By the way. There was one man in charge.

He's on the Pray Harder podcast. His name's no Hollands. He was like the apostle self appointed.

And he met with us after we were told that we weren't fit for Purpose met us in a cafe in a shopping center in Geelong. And I just determined to not say.

I've.

Honestly, at this point, I was broken. There was nothing I was going to say. I was not going to justify myself. I just wanted to be swallowed by the ground.

So I just sat there quietly, let my husband do all the talking. And I just had a few tears and I just wiped them. I just sat quietly. I was respectful, I was quiet.

And afterwards he said to my husband, yeah, she was a bit of an emotional woman, wasn't she? You just told me that I'm useless and worthless and not fit. And I had a few tears and I'm an emotional wreck.

Oh, my gosh, the audacity of these men.

Just to give you an idea of, like, that was, that was what we lived in. There was no, like, no emotion. No. Yeah. None of that. It was like robots.

And we sit here and we like have like a, A laughing tone to our, to this conversation. Because I think it's one of those situations where you're just like, if you don't, you'll cry.

Yeah. Yeah.

It's like, it's disastrous to like, it's so painful to sit with that idea and like, it's just also so absurd.

Yeah.

As well.

If you don't laugh, you'll cry. And the irony now, right, this is what stopped me speaking up for a long time because I'm like. It's like I'm proving them right.

It's like we told you, she was an outspoken woman. Anyway, it's like self, self fulfilling prophecy over here. But, but then, but back then I. All I wanted to do was be a blessing. I, I wasn't outspoken.

Believe it or not. I wasn't. I was obedient. I was positive. Like, I knew my role and I stuck to it. Obviously not enough, so. But yeah, so that was kind of.

Well, my son was probably seven years ago.

Yeah.

That was kind of like the start. Because if you're not right in it, if you're not right in the middle, which we were. We were like, right in the middle.

If you're not right in the middle, it's. It's kind of a miserable. Yeah. On the edges. And they always say that like, it's no fun on the edges. You want to be in the middle.

Yeah.

Because we didn't fit in the world. We had no friends. I had no desire to leave.

Yeah.

But I felt like, shame, Shameful woman. I, I said to one of my friends, I feel like I don't fit here anymore. But leaving was never an option. It just wasn't because I knew.

Haven't even started on shunning. I feel very strongly about shunning.

But yeah, that was my first thought is like. Because you mentioned that you've been out for about three years now.

Yeah.

So what was that? Four years? Like.

We had. We had a big family, we had really good friends and we had friends who rallied around us.

The assembly here was good, but there were so many, we call them what the moments.

Like the last few years in there, there was like situation in Sierra Leone where the guy in charge there was dealing in blood diamonds and it was like there were so many crazy pastors like Lawful saying nut job stuff and we'd all just be like, you'd find your people and you'd be like, how do we survive? What is going on here?

Like it was getting crazier and crazier because the guy in charge was only putting pastors in charge or helps in charge who were little minions and yes men and would just further. Yeah, we just encourage the kind of black and white thinking and. Yeah, yeah. So. And then in the end the thing that drove me to talk about.

Yeah, sorry, no, I.

It's all great.

So in the end my. My dad's still a pastor in the UK and there'd been another guy sent over to a situation which was two hours from where my dad was living.

And he's not a great pastor. I'll be honest, I'm being kind. He was sociopath.

And his over year like at first dad had tried to encourage him to go gently and they were friends, he was encouraging him. And then he was such a brute. In the end this. It had been going on for years.

His assembly, this other new new pastor, his assembly sent a letter to the man in charge in Geelong, no Holland, saying, please help us, please send someone over to review our situation because we're not being fed. He's not a kind man. Please help us.

A private letter, but he sent over his bulldog who is now in charge of the church because no Holland's has passed away. And basically he just kicked out everyone who signed this letter. There were 20 of them in a tiny assembly of like 30 people. He kicked them all out.

Yeah.

So he decimated his assembly because he was such a. But these were the men he was putting in charge. Right. And so my dad wrote a private letter to the guy in charge saying how much he did.

He didn't agree with the way the whole situation was handled and how he'd Handled Covid and felt they were above the law. And friends of ours had passed away from COVID complications because we all thought we were above the law.

Well, in Geelong I thought they were above law. Anyway, this private letter, in the end, dad was kicked out basically.

It's a long story but his help went behind his back and said to them, if you stand with him, my dad, Jeremy, then you will lose your families. And they all had found we've all got families. It's all, it's all interlinked. We've all got families. If you stand with him, you'll lose everyone.

So they all were like, no we don't. All because of a private letter that he sent saying he wasn't happy with the situation. So my dad and another.

There was two of them that had spoken up about this. It was just easier to sell the party line that they had interfered.

Yeah.

Then this guy that was put in charge was a bad choice.

Yeah.

So basically my dad got kicked out and Noel Hollands got up and explained that these two passes had been kicked out and then. And then called them Antichrists. Although he was escalated quick, it did escalate. But he was very clever.

He would never outright say it, he would imply it. So he'd be like, these two pastors have chosen to. Or chosen to leave, whatever they interfered. And then you go, let's open the scriptures too.

In the last days the Antichrist shall come. So he never like, he's like. I didn't actually call them that but like was it heavily insinuated? So they were called awful names. Awful names.

So basically my dad and my mum and my sister and her husband and their little kids, they were all in the same. So my sister married a Brit so she got to stay there.

Yeah.

They were immediately shunned by everyone. And because my dad was so well loved, like genuinely, they. He worked out because we were so hospitable. We had a lot of people stay at our house.

He reckoned he'd had over 500 people in our life stay at our house.

Oh my goodness.

No one.

Yeah.

Just. Or my mom's eldest of six, there was one. One of my uncles and his wife left with them and their son and his wife and that's. That's basically it.

There's been a few more trickle down but they encouraged us to stay because we had a good assembly here. Good assembly here in Warnable and we saw what happened to them. Like they were. It's shunning. It's like I have. I have big Thoughts on shunning.

I believe that's the main reason most people can't leave.

Yeah.

Is. Is shutting. Why would you do that to your family? And so dad was like, stay with it. Stay morning. Like, our pastor's a good guy.

He was friends with my dad, felt the same as my dad. But in the end he saw what happened to my dad. So why would he stand up and then lose his assembly too? So we stuck around for a good nine months.

Yeah.

Which was even then, my whole wanting to be a blessing, wanting to be uplifting. I couldn't talk about it with anyone.

Yeah.

Like us. And because covet had happened this time too. I hadn't actually seen my family for four years.

So this all happened and we couldn't even like we couldn't even sit down together and talk about it. I just had to pretend like that were not in my life. Although. Sorry, this is a really long.

It's fine.

So. So they ended up. They were heartbroken. Yeah.

I mean, you're right. Like shunning is disgusting. It is the most fear based, humiliation based practice that. You're right.

Keeps people in there because the alternative to be shunned is just the ultimate form of humiliation and isolation.

It's because we don't have a painful. Yeah, it's all by design. Right.

It's just.

It's all control. I've learned all this now. It's all controlled by design.

We're not encouraged to have friends outside the church, have a life outside, have any community except for within. So you can't leave it. No, you can't. It's all you've known and you know that you'll be shunned. So watching them go, it was awful. It was, it was.

It was heartbreaking. My sister's kids, little kids lost their cousins and friends like that. Like no one like this church.

We believe that anyone outside the church is bound for hell. So why would you not be trying to save people?

It's just the irony.

A lot. It's a lot. But they ended up. They found themselves at another church, which was actually what we'd broken away from in the 70s.

And because they hadn't been led by one guy, they're a lot healthier, less controlling, more fruitful, bigger. So my parents join. Dad calls them his good Samaritans. They welcome them into the fold.

They continued their life and their broken hearts were healed and they had this new community which was great for them. So we were watching that happen on one side and then on our side. I Couldn't talk about it.

Yeah.

I was like, okay. And it was confusing, but I'm like, by their fruits, I'll know them. Like, still. Even then, I'm like, where's the lesson in this? Where's.

Like, what am I meant to do? What are we meant to do? Because we didn't want to put our kids through that. Like, we saw.

Yeah.

I was so proud of my dad. I was also so proud of him for his integrity. Like, he stood up for people who needed standing up for.

Yeah.

And in the end, lost everyone.

Yeah.

I was so proud of him. So I knew if it push come to shove, I knew which side I was going to choose.

Yeah.

But we kind of prolonged it as long as we could. And they were coming over for a holiday at like, nine months later. And we mentioned to our pastor, we're like, look, Mum and Dad are coming.

They're going to be staying with us, like they always do. And he's like, well, they can't. They can't. So we had to go and see the guy in charge again about this. He handballed us up to the.

The head guy and he was like, nah, you can't. Like, then I'll sleep in your house. I'm like, I'm not sending my elderly parents to a caravan park or a motel. They're staying here. So anyway, we.

We thought about it for a while. We went to a Sunday meeting and at lunchtime we said to our pastor, so, they're staying. We've decided they're staying in a house.

Look, we could have kept it all secret, but it's a small town, people would have seen. And we respected him enough to. We wanted to be honest. So he was like, well, you can't be here. So I went and got the kids.

Oh, my God.

That was. That's us done. We've never been back.

What was that moment like, though? Like hearing him essentially say, well, you can't be here.

Heartbreaking. But. But I'll be honest, I had nine months to plot.

Like, I. I would go to the meeting during that year and I'd sit there and I knew how proud I was of my dad that he'd done that. And I'm like, there's going to come a point where I'm going to have to make a choice and none of these people are ever going to speak to me again.

So I would go to every meeting thinking, none of you are going to be my friends soon. And so that. That was heartbreaking. Every week? Yeah, every week. And so when that finally happened. I just thought we were out of fellowship. We kind of.

I went and got the kids because we'd set up for the next meeting. We had to take them out to the car.

And my husband, unbeknownst to me, stayed talking a bit longer and he shook his hand, he looked him in the eye, said, just, just give her a chance to see her parents. It's been four years. She just wants to sit down and talk to them in person. I'll bring my family back.

Because my husband was determined to come back and, and then at the next meeting he got up and told everyone that we were proud and that we left and to cut us off. And like that night, I still remember sitting on the couch knowing that everyone was at the meeting. It was, it was a weird time.

We're like, what do we do with ourselves on a Wednesday night? We like, we went to three meetings a week. Like, what do we do? And my, like, it's just social media, right? But it was significant.

Everyone unfriended, unfollowed. Like, I lost most of my social media friends overnight. It was very, it was heartbreaking. That night I cried a lot.

And then the next morning, our 14 year old son got sent a text message and he forwarded on. He's like, mum and dad, how do I respond to this? He got encouraged to leave home. So he come back to the church and I, I saw red.

I'm like, you can say what you want about me, but do not come for my kids. And I saw red woolies spinning around going, oh, I want to hit something. I'm going to hit something. Actually gonna lose it.

Yeah.

So, yeah, I ended up, I said, I rang my husband. I'm like, I'm going around to our pastor's doorstep right now. Do you want to meet me there? And I just got there.

I'm like, what has happened and why would I ever come back here?

Yeah.

And yeah, so that was pretty much. That was the last time we've been in the hall and.

Yeah.

Yeah. So that it was, it was hard with the kids, I'm not gonna lie. But it got worse actually. Sorry. It's a really.

No, like, I feel like it always does because like the leaving, like the part where you were cut off or like whether like a very like straight cut off, not allowed to come back or whether you make the decision to leave for whatever reason, that's. I feel like that's the start of a new part. It's the start of a new chapter. It's the start of a new part of your story.

And so it is one of those things that I think it feels like it gets worse before it gets better because it's like the grief and the isolation and the silence and like all of that is just so painful.

Yeah, we thought it was temporary though. Like we thought, I'll have mum and dad here. Yeah, get to talk to them and then decide what we want to do and we'll do our time.

Because our pastor was really lenient. Like he was famously lenient. He's like, ah, just come back. So we kind of expected that.

But what we didn't factor for was he was getting so much pressure from above because of the, as he called it, the high. Was it high profile nature of my dad. And so that. Not what I didn't mention that nine months while we were still in.

He was constantly thanking us for not setting off bombs. He's like, thank you for keeping what, you know to yourself. Even then I was striving to be a good example.

I was striving not to because it was messing me up, my spiritual. I didn't want to mess anyone else up. So I. There were a few people I could say things, but I barely talked about it.

One of my friends, I said, I just want to talk to my mum and dad. Like I just want to be able to have a conversation about it. She's like, but they've left us. You can't. They've left.

And I'm like, I can't even talk to my friends. Yeah, And I did, thankfully, I had a few, but they're all still in there and so now they're not my friends.

But he would, he was thanking us for still being a good testimony and I wish I'd be more outspoken. That's one thing I regret. Yeah, I wish I'd set off those bombs. I wish people knew what I know. That's, I suppose why I'm talking up now.

But yeah, even then, like still striving to be a good testimony. But then. So, yeah, it was, it was shocking. But we thought it was temporary, I suppose. And I keep saying too, I was so lucky.

Like, I'm one of the lucky ones. I left with my husband, with our kids. We've got a tight little family unit. I've got my parents, I've got my sister, so.

And family who left around this time. So I'm one of the lucky ones. Like so many. Most leave on their own and have nothing. And that's. I cannot even comprehend how damaging and hard that is.

Yeah.

So we were lucky. We were really lucky. We had beautiful support and also in this beautiful town, we had. We'd made friends.

So thankfully we've been really well supported. The week actually was 10 days after that time and everyone had cut us off. My husband's mum died. That's a whole other story actually.

She was kicked out of the church about 15 years prior because she had diagnosed schizophrenia and it was too hard. Basket. So. So she was kicked out of the church and she still lived with my father in law at home.

And I try not to talk about this too much because I don't want to upset Adam's family. They won't believe that. But I really do try to tread carefully there.

Yeah.

So she was already out of the church. She was already. And my father in law still attended. He still does attend the church, as does Adam's brother and his family.

But she passed away and Adam got. I could count on one hand the amount of condolence messages he got from these people who were 10 days before his brothers and sisters.

Yeah.

Like. And that broke him. It broke him. He's like, I'm getting more kindness on the street than these people who. Because he'd come along when he was about 4.

So this was his community and it. Yeah, it was cruel, basically. Yeah, yeah.

Cruel is the word that comes to mind for me as well because it's very intentional and it doesn't have to be that way and that it's like there is a choice there to actively choose to cut someone off to do the things that they're doing. And yeah, I think cruel is the only word that. That encapsulates that.

Yeah. I have strong thoughts on shunning.

Yeah, absolutely.

It doesn't work. I think it does. So I'm quite outspoken about it. But so even at her funeral, we had the wake at our house because she. Because she left the church.

She was agrophobic as well as schizophrenic. She didn't have many friends, so we didn't think it would be big. So we had the wake here.

Yeah.

And the few people who came from the church to support Adam's family, they would not step foot inside our house for the wake. And so, yeah, that was. That were probably the pivotal points. And then another time and. But I kept my mouth shut even then.

Like I've only just started speaking up this year. It's probably after my grandma's funeral, the. The matriarch of our family, that she was still in the church.

All my uncles and aunties so they completely cut us off. My, I absolutely adored my uncles and aunties and my cousins. Like I was the eldest of a huge group and we, we all loved each other.

Like we were all great mates. They completely cut us off.

Yeah.

Very self righteous. But anyway, my grandma died last year. Yeah. Last year. And my husband and I went to the church service. We went to the burial.

We stood on one side, they all stood on the other. And I couldn't bring myself to approach them. Like, I get quite anxious when I see people who have shunned me.

I find I'm still struggling with that a bit.

But I think that's a normal human response. Jody, just for the record, it's awful.

I'm like, my kids, we've got nothing to be ashamed of. Don't let them make you feel like that. But even myself, like, if I see certain people, my hands get anyway.

Yeah.

But the worst part, it's. It was a whole long story. But my husband and I went to. We walked back into the hall for their like assembly.

Yeah.

The big funeral.

The service.

Yeah.

And we walked in and sat behind a pastor who used to be a friend of ours. He turned around and went, oh, it's you. And which we just laugh. We're like, really? It's my grandma, anyway. And I would say favorite too.

Just putting it out there. I was the eldest, but it came to the slideshow at the end and there was not one photo of me, of my mum, of my kids who were.

My mum was her eldest, I was her eldest grandchild. My kids were her eldest great grandchildren. Not one photo of us or our families or my other uncle who left.

There were photos of other people who left the family. And ironically, two of my cousins that had had a little stint in jail, they made it, but we, but we didn't. So like we were dead to them.

Yeah. It's the erasure that I think is the most painful aspect of both shunning and excommunication.

But it's the erasure that they genuinely would prefer you to be dead.

And even, like I say, it's worse than as if a family member's died because they won't even talk about you. Like they. We used it like the photo albums. You cross out ones that had left. Like it's, it's wild.

It actually makes me laugh because I was such a good girl. I was always like, you know, doing items at our camps. I played violin and I was. And not for any, like, it was never self glory. Oh my goodness, no.

But Just, you know, glory to the Lord. And it kind of makes me laugh now because I was on a lot of the Camp CDs. We used to do, like, greatest hits from camp.

And I've just destroyed camp CDs with so many people because they won't listen to songs that backsliders have sung. So I'm like, I kind of love that. I've destroyed that for a years. Few.

Yeah.

The irony of that is great.

Yeah. But it's just. Yeah. The erasure of, like, my history. Not many people that are in my life now, except for, like, my parents and that. No.

Knew me as a child.

Yeah.

But. Yeah. So that they were the two. And I think that just flicked a switch in me with my uncles and I. Like, it was so cruel.

It was just like, that's shunning. It's. It's meant to punish those who leave and to entrap those who are still there.

Yeah.

Because, like, why would you put yourself through that? You know what it looks like.

Absolutely.

There's no way to spin it that is good for you. There's just not. So after that, I was just like, you know what? Why am I protecting these people? That if there was any hope of reconciliation.

Yeah.

That's why people don't speak up.

Yeah.

But I felt like we were so far beyond that.

Yeah.

And then the big inquiry happened. And if there's ever a time that it's good to be talking about, this is now. So that's kind of why I started. And that's a whole other beast. Because.

Yes. You know, they hate you. You know what they say about people who speak up. The character assassination. So it's.

I've had to work on my outspoken woman shame.

I mean, what has even just like the last 12 months of learning language of shunning and coercive control and thought reform and indoctrination and like all of the language that helps us understand so much of what we've experienced. Like, what has that done for you in understanding?

Oh, it's just absolutely liberating.

Yeah.

Justice. Being able to put words to so many are the things that I didn't. Like, I couldn't quite pinpoint.

Yeah.

And I think that's one reason. Oh, it's absolutely liberating. Coercive control. That's the other thing I'm so passionate about, like, systemic coercive control.

But the one thing my purpose. And it's not just to. To slag off where I came from at all. Even still, I'm still that person I just wanted. I want to be a positive impact.

And I hate the narrative that people who leave are miserable and destitute and lost, because that's another tool that's just. It's just all control and fear. Like, our whole system was based on control and fear. Basically, is now what I see. Not a whole lot of love in there.

It was all control and fear. And that's just another tool. I'm like, you know what? I can take back this narrative and show people that we're thriving.

Like, my kids are ridiculously resilient, amazing people, and they're thriving. We're thriving. It's not this doom and gloom that people fear. It is. And so I suppose my little tiny corner of the Internet, that's what I'm trying to.

It's just talk about. I try to approach everything with empathy because I am ashamed to say I was part of that system for 40 years. Like, I know how it works.

I know how it messes with your head. I know how it entraps you in fear. So I try to really keep that in the forefront. Like, yeah, empathy.

Because I know how that feels, that I know what it feels like to be unhappy.

Yeah.

But can't do anything about it because, like, what's the option? I lose everyone and I don't know what the world looks like. I don't have friends out there. So, yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to.

Even now, even though they'll say I'm just attacking, just. I'm really trying to.

Yeah.

Positive influence in that still.

I mean, I think that's one of the hardest parts of. Of deconstruction and processing all of this stuff is the role that you once played in it.

Like, I'm sitting here, like, married to a woman, proud queer person. But like, a decade ago, I was not that person. I was the person still telling other queer people that they could not be queer and that they needed to.

To repent. And. And so, like, there is so much grief and pain attached to the part that you played in that system. But you would.

Like, we were just as indoctrinated and controlled and manipulated as well.

And so it's just tension that you need to hold where, you know, you were both a victim and a perpetrator, but the perpetrator part of you was because you were so heavily controlled and indoctrinated. And it's just messy.

Comes in. Right. Because I have so much shame.

Like, I didn't leave and reach out to people who'd left before me because I was so Ashamed that I didn't follow them up. And I love. I love that people reach out to me now.

And look, there was this group, there's a Facebook group of ex members, and I didn't join that for about a year.

Yeah.

Like, you know, the rhetoric around people who leaves are all bitter and twisted, and I don't want to be part of that. But honestly, I've loved that group for the reconnections that I've made and people who actually understand where we've come from.

And so I kind of wanted to be that. In my little corner, I've got a tiny little Instagram page.

But I've had so many beautiful people, people I didn't know well, but have come from that church because not many are free to speak up because they hope for reckons or they have had reconciliation with a few in there, with family, and if they speak up, that's gone again. So I understand it. I understand why people can't. And I'm the first one to say, like, I'm deeply ashamed of my part in that. I.

And I like to think I was never cruel.

Yeah.

But I still held those beliefs, like. And I. I felt deeply uncomfortable with telling people they weren't right. I like to think I didn't do that. But I was part of that system.

Like, I believe that. So just being part of it, I perpetrated that. So I perpetuated it so that it's. It's a. It's a hard thing because I don't want to live in shame.

Yeah.

And we all have agency, but also, so many in there, don't. They just. I know.

I know so many friends who are stuck in there that can't leave because their husbands won't or know they'll lose, like, their kids will lose their grandparents. They'll lose their grand. Like, it's a disgusting tangled web. It really is.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Okay.

These are the last couple of questions that I usually ask in these episodes, and I'm interested to hear your answer to this question, because there's been a couple of things that you've said that might suggest that you might have absolutely no flipping idea. But most likely, where is your sense of spirituality now?

Oh, that's a good question. Full disclosure, I don't go anywhere to church. So this church that my parents joined and my family joined, I joined that.

Yeah.

For a while. And I stepped away this year. Hence, me saying this is the first time I've really. I just needed space.

I needed space to unpack what was doctrine and indoctrinated my whole life. And what I really believed.

Yeah.

We've talked about how I feel about speaking in times. That was a big part of it. But for me, what I found was I discovered surfing with my kids during COVID We live at the beach.

So the ocean, it sounds so twee and it sounds so cliche. But walking my dog when we first got kicked out on the beach saved my mental health.

Yeah.

I know that it did. So I quickly learned that I need to get out in nature and I need to move my body. So I would go into the ocean and I feel so calm.

Or I'd walk in nature and I'd be so calm and so happy. Like I do. I feel really more than I ever have in my life. I feel genuinely peaceful. And I didn't think that would happen.

Yeah.

By not going to church. But so for me, like nature.

Yeah.

And surrounding myself with good people. Like I joined. And community. I joined a. An all abilities choir.

Oh, I love that.

Oh my goodness. Honestly, I cry every single. I just. I really miss singing. I love singing. And I had friends who were part of it.

I'd wanted to join for a while and I just knew it would be wholesome. So my daughter and I went to that. And it is honestly the most beautiful, wholesome display of humanity I have ever seen ever. It's just.

It's just the best. And I end up crying every. I mean, I'm menopausal, so I cry everything.

But honestly, that, to me, that surrounding myself with good community and nature. I get out in nature at the beach and go. I can't explain all this. And I'm okay with that. I'm really. I'm curious.

I love being able to tell my kids and model to my kids, which is. I haven't even talked about this. This is probably my most important driver is what am I modeling to my kids.

Yeah.

And I don't. I want them to have choice and agency in their life.

Yeah.

And that it's okay to make mistakes. I just. Just feel like we put so much. Well, we had so much pressure put on us.

Yeah.

And I don't want my kids to be under. So we're still navigating life without those boundaries. Like I keep saying, I don't have time for an existential crisis. I've got teenagers.

I just don't. I don't like. Not just like midlife crisis, but existential crisis.

Oh, absolutely.

But you know what? It's okay for them to see that. I not don't profess to have any answers. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't think anyone does.

I really, truly don't believe anyone knows. So that's where I've come to. Yeah. So it's okay to be curious.

Yeah.

It's okay to challenge your beliefs. And that's what I want to model to my kids. So that's where I'm at now. No idea. But loving the journey. Like, really loving.

And I met so many amazing people through questioning things like yourself. Like, just the Religious Trauma Collective. Like, and I know everyone from my church will eye roll religious trauma, but it is a thing.

I roll it all.

They like, they roll. I'm rolling everything I say, honestly. But yeah, so that's where I'm at. Sorry. Long.

No, I love that. And, you know, it just. I feel like it just echoes back what I had said earlier on, which is that nature will leave people out.

Far more than Seriously. It's a thing. It's a thing. And counseling.

Like, I've had to go to a counselor because of my, like, and I'm the first one to say, I, I didn't suffer any trauma in there. Like, I didn't have any abuse. Honestly, the crazy abuse I've heard because I've now got this platform, tiny little platform.

But the amount of people that have come to me with their stories and I, I. It's made me unpick that whole system. Like, that whole system I believe to be so problematic. I haven't even gone into that.

The fact that we're raised to be completely compliant, obedient, never question adults. We're expected to implicitly trust everyone in our assembly. So I got quite resent. I actually can't have people stay at my house anymore.

I just had a house full of teenagers for my daughter's birthday. But, like, we were just expected to trust. And I let people into my house I didn't even know.

Yeah.

And I got quite resentful that we were so naive. Thankfully nothing ever happened. But I just makes me cringe. Like, it. It is the perfect breeding ground and perfect paradise for predators.

Yep.

We haven't even gone into that, but I have strong feelings on that now too.

Yeah. And I think for anybody who is interested, like, the GRC was like, a particular part and quite a prominent part of what prompted the inquiry.

And so, like, there is very strong language around the cult behaviors that you see in that space. So if you know, you are interested, go to Jody's page. Go to, like, I think it's Stop Religious Coercion Australia on Instagram.

The podcast that you mentioned, there are plenty of spaces that talk about GRC and, and the. In less about the behaviors and less about the beliefs and far more.

More about the behaviors in the system that are, that are incredibly dangerous, really problematic and absolutely cult like.

Yeah. And so many groups. It's the way. And it is, it's a, it's a.

And also the men who are like dominant, like they're encouraged by not only the pastor's behavior, but by this week to be rulers of their house.

So the amount of cases of domestic violence I've heard about and the people that are stuck there, and I've had women reach out to me who are in there who said, please keep talking because I can't leave. Yeah, that's heartbreaking. But yeah, so the system I believe to be so deeply problematic too. And I, I talk a bit about that.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Okay.

My final question is always to offer some encouragement for people and I think you might actually, actually be probably one of the freshest in, in reflecting in this space that I've had on the podcast.

And so I'm wondering like whether you can offer some encouragement who might be in a similar time span to you who are still, you know, unpacking this in the first few years of coming out. What would you say to those people?

Oh, I would say, ah, trust your gut. If it doesn't feel right, probably doesn't. And be kind to yourself.

Yeah.

Don't be afraid to ask for help. Speak to a counselor. Like, honestly, again, I would have eye rolled at that because mental health wasn't a thing. I haven't even touched on that.

But mental health wasn't. We were not encouraged to seek mental health medical help, any of that. But I'm very much on the lookout for residual damage to my kids.

And so that'll be the first thing I encourage them to do is speak to someone. But for those still even locked in, be honest, Be honest to your friends if you feel like you can be honest to your family.

Because I know so many people in the same big families that are not happy and I feel like just putting them all in a room and saying, hey, be honest with each other and you can all leave together.

Yeah.

Because I feel like there's so many like that. But just be kind to yourself. Find what works for you. And it's so different for everyone. Like it really is.

But the things that have helped me connection. I just, I love talking to people and I have found too. When I've been honest about my story, I've had nothing but love. So be honest. Don't.

There's nothing. You have nothing to be ashamed of. Particularly us, I think, who were born and raised. Yeah, we've got. I'm not carrying that shame. I'm like, nah.

But I didn't know any different. And anytime I've been honest, I've just been met with so much kindness, so much like understanding. So, yeah, be honest. Find a community.

Find something that makes your brain and your heart feel good and do it. And yeah, don't be afraid to reach out for help. And there's so many of us now.

There are so many levers who are thriving or can be honest if they're not. Like, I feel like we're. It's a really good time. I was really lucky to leave a cult at this time because there's so many resources.

Like, they just are. So reach out to people because you'll be met with kindness. I think that's the biggest fallacy that the world's out to get us. It's just not true.

It's just. It's not been my experience. So I reject that.

I love that. That's what we're finishing on. I think that's so good. The world is not out to get you. I love.

Oh, but the arrogance around that. Thinking that anybody else cares about.

Yeah.

Attacking us spiritually like people. We're all busy in our own lives. I know. I just think that's. How arrogant were we to think that the world was out to get us, like, nobody cares.

Just. Absolutely. Oh, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so honored to be your first podcast, I feel so.

Thanks for letting me ramble.

Oh, I love. I love a good rambling. But thank you for sharing so openly and vulnerably. I really appreciate it.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of beyond the Surface. I hope you found today's conversation as insightful and inspiring as I did.

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Remember, no matter where you are on your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning, and keep moving forward. Take care.