In this episode of "Beyond the Surface," we explore Meg's powerful journey of faith deconstruction, beginning with her upbringing in a Christian family in New Zealand and involvement in a conservative Pentecostal church. Meg shares her experiences with purity culture, the internal conflicts of being a devout Christian while navigating typical teenage behaviours, and the impact on her relationship with God and sense of self. We also discuss the tension between church leadership, personal well-being, and family life, and the healing that came from stepping back from church roles to focus on health and personal growth.

More About Meg

Meg is a Sex and Relationship Coach specialising in helping people recovering from the shame-based religious teachings of purity culture and the deconstruction of their faith. She has trained in Clinical Sexology, Trauma Informed Care, is a Certified Advanced Sex and Relationship Coach and Integrated Intimacy Practitioner.

She supports people to explore personal agency and intimate connection.

Meg is also a Protect Accredited Trainer (New Zealands leading protection and self defense agency). For more than 14 years she's worked with clients to help them identify the behavioural and psychological signs of abuse and practical strategies for staying safe.

In all these areas her work focuses on the mind-body connections that help people recover from trauma and find freedom in their bodies.

As the creator of the couples guide to Hotter Sex in 10 days, and The Shame-free Sex Course she delivers empowering practical skills to people all around the world on these subjects.

Connect With Us

• You can reach Meg on her website - https://megcowan.com
• You can also connect over on Instagram - @megccowan

• You can connect with Sam over on Instagram - @anchoredcounsellingservices
• Want to contact with Sam about the podcast or therapy? Use this contact form.

00:18 - Sam (Host)

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 recognise 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.

00:58

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 or cult 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, meg. Thanks for joining me.

01:41 - Meg (Guest)

Hi, thanks so much for having me. I'm super excited.

01:44 - Sam (Host)

I am so excited. This episode has been a long time coming, I feel like. So it's nice to finally get to it and we are recording. At the time, it is Easter, it's Good Friday. It's a weird, weird time for people in this community, right?

02:01 - Meg (Guest)

Yeah, absolutely. We all have some different feelings about Easter absolutely so.

02:07 - Sam (Host)

Tell me, where does your story start, meg?

02:11 - Meg (Guest)

where does my story start um? I was three when my parents became Christians.

02:16 - Sam (Host)

I don't know how far back do we want to go yeah, I was.

02:19 - Meg (Guest)

I was really young. I remember clearly a conversation with a woman in the church leading me to Jesus as a three-year-old like I have such a strong memory of that. And then my parents left church when I was between the times I was 10 and 12, they kind of went through a process of leaving their church. So when people talk about faith things I'm like, yeah, well, I did a lot of years in that real good Baptist fundamental kind of space. Then I did a bit of deconstructing. You know, listening to my parents' conversations around before deconstructing was even a word or a thing. They were doing it. So I've been kind of having those conversations in mind from quite a young age. But then in my teenage years we're still going to youth group.

03:01

We're still getting lots of lovely purity culture messaging and all that sort of rubbish um, and then really threw myself back into an evangelical space as an 18 year old um and was in ministry for they're involved in church and on staff for five years at a big local church um, charismatic pentecostal kind of church um, and I so, yeah, involved in in ministry for probably 15 years, five of those employed by the church.

03:30 - Sam (Host)

There you go in a nutshell wow okay, what do you remember about praying that prayer so young?

03:37 - Meg (Guest)

yeah, I remember her young son who was also praying this prayer. She was American. I remember her hair, um, she was very like she was one of these very put together American woman and she was I don't actually know how mum and dad knew her some connection through the church. Mum and dad had come out of their own lifestyles and became Christians when I was three and you know, for them, becoming Christians represented an amazing transformation in their lives, really changed from how their lives were to what they came into. But for me as a three-year-old, I just remember this oh my gosh, jesus died. Like I can't even I don't have really specifics to hang around it because I was three, right, but I just remember this feeling of someone died and I have to pray this prayer and I didn't really understand more than that, obviously, until I was later.

04:36 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I mean, I'm thinking from a developmental point of view. Like you, you've got, you've got no freaking idea really. Like that's the reality of of that situation. If people have not already recognized, you are in the beautiful country of New Zealand with that accent, what does a fundamental Baptist church look like in New Zealand?

05:01 - Meg (Guest)

Yeah, so it's interesting. I don't know whether exactly how you would classify the church we were in. It was quite conservative and fundamental in a lot of its beliefs, but it was also Pentecostal, so there was lots of clapping and dancing and flags and you know like. So it was one of those really interesting mixes. I just have really strong memories of, like, some of our old family friends in the particular way they would dance and clap and um. So yeah, I don't know exactly how they would classify themselves, but those are kind of the memories. I went through um Sunday school there and did all of the you know like the little exams that you can do, the Sunday school exams and things like that, and I remember those being very kind of traditional and young earth creationist kind of stuff and yeah, I've never heard of Sunday school having exams yeah, I got 99%.

05:53

By the way, did you know?

05:56 - Sam (Host)

I mean it reflects that.

05:58 - Meg (Guest)

I mean, I don't know, was I seven, was I nine? I don't know. I was young, but I still actually have the certificate somewhere because I was so damn proud of it when I was oh my goodness, yeah, yeah, we actually got taken from our um taken. That sounds terrible. We got um escorted, transported from the church up to the local primary school and it was sat in like very formal exam sort of environment.

06:26 - Sam (Host)

Oh my goodness.

06:28 - Meg (Guest)

So there you go. I was a true Christian 99%.

06:31 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, yeah, I joke in my story. In year six, I got voted by my peers as the most likely to become the first female Pope. Wow, I was really good at religion.

06:44 - Meg (Guest)

That's quite an accolade. Wow, I was really good at religion.

06:46 - Sam (Host)

So I I get the, the, I guess the primary school flex of being able to do really good at those, those religious based exams. But yeah, I had never heard of Sunday school having exams. That's quite full on.

06:58 - Meg (Guest)

Yeah, it is looking back, yeah.

07:02 - Sam (Host)

Oh my goodness, what were some of the messages that you had about yourself and about the world at that age being part of that type of a church.

07:12 - Meg (Guest)

Yeah, I mean, I think it would be unfair to say that it was all bad, because I was taught beautiful things about God loves me and humanity and those sorts of things, like it wasn't all hellfire and brimstone, but it was some hellfire and brimstone.

07:29

So, it's really always quite difficult to carry those realities in yourself that on one hand, you're told that God loves you and Jesus loves you and then also that you're really sinful and obviously, of course, as I got older and the youth groups and the youth camps that I went to, that my body was dangerous and I was a temptress to boys and I had to cover up and all those sorts of things. So, yeah, it was quite conflicting some of the messages that you receive at that time.

07:58 - Sam (Host)

Yeah.

07:59 - Meg (Guest)

And.

07:59 - Sam (Host)

I think it's hard for people who have not been a part of that type of environment to understand how you can have what feel like really conflicting feelings about a time period and to be able to find moments of like joy, but also moments of real harm and hurt and for them to both be able to coincide and coexist, and it not be about cancelling either of them out.

08:28 - Meg (Guest)

Yeah, yeah, it's a really tricky tension to hold in yourself and your body and to then wade through and untangle, yeah yeah.

08:38 - Sam (Host)

Okay, let's get to the fun part of your teenage years. I'm expecting, because obviously, if anybody knows anything about Meg, you work with the lingering effects of purity culture.

08:49 - Meg (Guest)

So I want to hear about purity culture for you yeah, okay, so well, purity culture for me was quite quite an interesting beast because, like I said, my parents had left the church in my early teens and we would pop into church things and that. But so I was going to youth group by myself because and they were really happy for me to go, because I had peers there and you know, as far as they were concerned, it was a great environment they never had a youth group experience, might I add, so they didn't really probably even know the extent of what was going to be taught there. Um, so I would go to these youth group events and I would especially remember purity culture teaching coming in quite strong through, like some of the Easter camps and the different things that I would go to there, um and so then, but what is also interesting is that for my 13th, I had a Christian adaptation of a bat mitzvah. So this was we have Jewish heritage. My great grandmother is a Polish Jew, so it wasn't complete appropriation. There was some familial ties to that and it was really it was designed to be and there was a few people that we knew who'd done things like this. It was designed to be an intensive time period where my parents could really raise me in good character, teach me things about character development and, to be fair, there were lots of really lovely things about what they were doing. They were really intentionally putting time and effort and energy into helping me to step into adulthood and I really respect and honor their intention with doing that.

10:33

But there were some problematic elements around sexual purity and those sorts of things and I read Dr James Dobson's book Preparing for Adolescence. That was kind of the key feature around development and sexuality. And then I signed a contract that we wrote and I promised that I would not engage in any smutty behavior, which is obviously very ambiguous language. So that was a tricky one to unpack as I got older and then started, you know, doing things that developmentally were very natural and normal. So I wouldn't engage in any smutty behavior.

11:10

I remember the words and there were, and I got a ring as well. I got a purity ring, and so dad and I went and purchased it and that was again. It's these two really conflicting things that I hold alongside each other. It's these two really conflicting things that I hold alongside each other. One my dad, who I love, doing something that he believed was the best for me like I never reflect on my story and feel any kind of anger towards them, because they were really doing what they believed was best. But then the implications that came from this purity ring and what that meant, and signing this contract so literally vowing to myself that I would not do sexual things then creates an incredible amount of dissonance for you when you are in 16, 17, 18 and exploring sexual things with people.

12:02 - Sam (Host)

and so, yeah, that that was my experience of purity culture what did you think about it at the time when it was all happening?

12:11 - Meg (Guest)

um, what did I think about it at the time? I didn't, I didn't know any different. I just thought that's what people did, you know like? Uh, I thought it was cool that I got a ring. Um, I got to pick it had aquamarines. They were my birthstone. I love aquamarines. Like I don't know. I thought I did. I found some really awkward moments and because I also had to learn and memorize scripture and then we had a big um family event and some family friends came and we had like a whole dinner and we had a candle stick and we lit the candles and I had to do these seven different things and so it was quite formal at that point.

12:54

But again, I got to go shopping with mum and buy a new outfit, and I had this new ring and I got a birthday gift and so and all my family were there, and so very, very mixed feelings that I have when I look back on it yeah, I mean, it's very.

13:10 - Sam (Host)

It's similar to what we see in the US in terms of, like, purity pledges and purity balls and purity rings and you know, all of those ceremonial things that you know. From my perspective, of course, a young girl is going to be excited about getting a new ring and getting a new outfit and all of that sort of thing, and so it's using things that I think are naturally going to appeal to a teenage girl to make it, um, you know, seem exciting, seem like something that you want to do, um, without, yeah, thinking too much into it, um, so and I.

13:48 - Meg (Guest)

I think it worked really well for me in my thinking then, because I was the oldest of the four kids, I was quite responsible, um, I had a very strong sense of black and white and justice and those sorts of things. So I was like, well, this is the way, so this is what I've got to do and I've got to be all in on it. Um, so I think it in some way it kind of worked for me at that age and stage.

14:15 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, where was your personal relationship with God at this point?

14:21 - Meg (Guest)

yeah, um, I definitely would have said that I had a strong connection to God at sort of 12, 13, 14, like through youth camps, um, but what I, when I reflect back on it, I had these moments that were really strong and then, like Easter camp events and things like that, and and even sometimes, you know, at home I'd put worship music on and I'd have these really connected feeling moments and I would pray.

14:52

But I also had a lot of guilt that went alongside of it. And then as I got to you know, 16, 17, and started experimenting with going out to parties and drinking and boys and that kind of stuff. I had this very dual experience where I desperately wanted to be good and do the right things for God and have that personal relationship with God. And I was I was even like quite vocal among my peers about that and speaking up about that, which is a a little cringy now, to be honest. But then I also had this real guilt of, hey, I'm doing stuff that's outside of what a good Christian girl's supposed to do. So I always felt attention, like I was always needing to run back to God and repent and apologize for where I got things wrong.

15:43 - Sam (Host)

So, yeah, yeah, what a confusing thing for a teenage girl to be going through I mean, that's confusing for most people but to be, you know, exploring very natural, normal sort of rites of passage with a cloud of guilt over them. Do you feel like that took away from some of those experiences?

16:14 - Meg (Guest)

like that um took away from some of those experiences. Yeah, I look back on it now and I think, oh, there's things I should have. Just, they were really fun, they were really cool experiences and I should have just enjoyed them for what they were, um, and and not carried so much guilt and shame over things and, you know, developmental things that I was noticing in my own body and that I should have just been allowed to go.

16:33 - Sam (Host)

Oh, this is something that happens when you're this age, you know yeah, what was it like um navigating relationships and your own sexuality with the messaging of purity culture?

16:49 - Meg (Guest)

yeah, so it was interesting. So I had um previous to meeting my husband or to starting dating my husband. Obviously I had a bunch of different experiences um with different people, but I met my husband and managed to get all the way to our wedding as a technical virgin, so I had done lots of different bits and pieces over the years, but I made it to our wedding day, um without you know intercourse, and so it was. It was really interesting because we both agreed quite early on in our relationship although we didn't meet in the church, we met through friends but we started attending church together, this large pentecostal church that we're a part of, and we agreed together around our boundaries and things. And he's a very principled, loyal kind of guy, which is one of the things that actually I love and respect about him. He's really, you know, his word is his word and there's incredible goodness in that. But so we just made these decisions.

17:52

And was it difficult? Yeah, of course we were 19 and 20 and 21, 22. But also it wasn't really a question, and so I didn't realize that I was repressing myself in those moments. I just thought I was doing the best job I could at holding to my boundaries with him, and so I actually felt a sense of pride that I had been able to stick to those boundaries where I maybe hadn't so well in previous experiences with other people. So again, very conflicting experience.

18:30 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, what do you feel like you were repressing specifically?

18:36 - Meg (Guest)

uh, pleasure in my body, yeah, um, arousal, desire, uh, knowing that when those things happened in my body, that then I'm quick run away from that, get away from that. You know, get some distance between you and him. When those things happen and when those feelings come up, like you can't sit with them and explore. What am I noticing in my body. Does that feel really good? Yeah, it really does. You know, I couldn't sit with any of that stuff um so. I was repressing my own, accessing my own sense of pleasure yeah.

19:14 - Sam (Host)

Did that repression just automatically go away after you got married and finally had your sexual debut, as people say, because I hate the term, but you know yeah oh I, I would not have ended up in this work if it had just gone away.

19:38 - Meg (Guest)

No, it did not just go away, like you don't just magically flick a switch and, um, suddenly then get okay with that. And so I was, many years into my marriage, still wrestling with like why did I have this desire before I got married? Like I was interested and into him and then suddenly we're married. I'm like, oh no, not really that interested, feeling loads of expectation, feeling loads of pressure here, and he's such a great guy like he never created those feelings of pressure, he never coerced me, he never did anything like that and I'm super, super grateful that that's part of my story to have such a loving, great guy. But I felt within myself incredible amounts of expectation about what a good wife should be doing, how I should be meeting his needs and those things. Yeah, I didn't suddenly switch the switch and be like sure, let's go.

20:38 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I think when we think of purity culture, there is this misconception that it's just about sex with other people, and it's so, so much more than than that, and most of the time, I find that it's more about your own sexuality than it is about your ability to have sex with another human. Um, yeah, yeah, what were some of those expectations that you had on yourself as a wife?

21:15 - Meg (Guest)

on yourself as a wife. Yeah, I think it was definitely this feeling that sex was a need for him. And again this I want to be clear, this wasn't coming from him, but things that I was taught that sex was a need for men and that I needed to make sure that I met those needs so that he wasn't tempted to lust or fall into sin or have an affair or anything like that. There was also this really weird belief that exists in purity culture that I found myself really wrestling with, that I had followed the rules, like I had done a really good job in that relationship of sticking to our boundaries and all that kind of thing, and I expected that, because I had done things right, I would have a blessed sex life and relationship. It was the fairy tale myth, right. And so as a wife, I really felt like, well, I must have done something wrong. There's something wrong or bad about my body. And again, that's the purity culture tropes that you know there's something wrong with women's bodies because they cause men to lust and sin.

22:19

But I was in my marriage knowing that technically this should be okay and technically God should be blessing us. But there must be something wrong or I was broken or I was not normal. Lessen us, but there must be something wrong. Or I was broken or I was not normal. And alongside this, I was also wrestling with a lot of chronic pain and illness. I had got really sick when I'd lived in Hong Kong as a 17 18 year old and I came back home to New Zealand and I had post-viral syndrome. I had the original SARS, and so I came home and I had like post-viral syndrome and a lot of things and chronic migraines and fatigue and pain, and so I was also in our first year of marriage wrestling with a lot of those symptoms happening, and so I really did take on the messaging that what is going wrong in our sex life is because of me and my body being broken and not able to yeah, to be enough, yeah.

23:15 - Sam (Host)

How did that impact your relationship with God then? Because, like you know, like I'm sort of going back to that question because I'm thinking, you know, you're now in a space where you're like I'm the problem problem, like I'm feeling like I'm failing, I'm broken, there's something wrong with me, and so, you know, how does that impact a relationship with a God that was supposed to be blessing you at this point, according to those expectations?

23:48 - Meg (Guest)

expectations. Yeah, it's a tricky one to navigate mentally and there was a lot of thinking around. If I had more faith I would be healed, and you know how many times do we all hear the story of the woman with the issue of blood and she reached out and it was her faith that made her well, and all of those stories I actually really clung to. And yet again a conflict in me that I felt like I was having as much faith as I possibly could and knowing that apparently I only needed the faith the size of a mustard seed. But obviously I hadn't been able to conjure up even that much faith, even enough faith to move God to hear me and heal me, to help me make sense of how things were in my sex life or how I felt about my body generally. So my relationship with God in that again I felt under tension, I felt stretched that I had this view of a God who loved me and yet wasn't hearing me. But I needed to and remember that by this time I was then so a year or so after we're married.

25:03

I was then working for the church, so I was working in a church environment. I was going to not just Sunday services and Wednesday night programs, but I was working in a church environment. I was going to not just Sunday services and Wednesday night programs, but I was going to prayer meetings and staff meetings and all these sorts of things. I was getting prayed for by every big name preacher that came through. You know, would be in staff meetings and they'd pray for me and my healing, and so my relationship with God through that time was I really endeavored to lean into God and lean on God, because I had no understanding of why this wouldn't change, and so I kept going back to just lean on God.

25:39

Just lean on God. His ways are higher than your ways. It's above your understanding. You don't know why this is happening. Maybe there's something else you still need to learn, and until you've learned that you won't be well, there's something else you still need to learn, and until you've learned that, you won't be well. So again, like so much of my story, I see this duality and this conflict between two really, really tricky things.

25:59 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, and I mean, it almost sounds like you're, it's like spiritual bypassing yourself. Oh, absolutely, yeah, you know, I think we often think that that just comes from other people, but you know, we do it all the time to ourselves. Well, um, but it also sounds like your view of God at that time didn't change.

26:23 - Meg (Guest)

It was that your view of yourself was the issue yeah, well, this, this, because we're taught not to question those things, right, and so a big, a big part of my story was learning that it's okay to ask questions and your questions are good, because at that, those early stages, I didn't question the church leaders, I didn't, and the times that I did speak up in those spaces in question I was really met with resistance. So you don't question people who are in authority and you definitely don't question God, because God is sovereign and so you don't question your understanding of these things. So my theology was kind of just, it was baked in, it was what I'd learned from really young and I didn't question it. So I just kept going back, going back, going back, like, well, god is sovereign, god's on the throne, so it was yeah, what was it like for you working for a church?

27:27 - Sam (Host)

because I know for a lot of people, once they get to be a part of that inner circle of a church, that's that can sometimes be where everything starts to unravel. And, um, and I know um from you, know the little bit that I know about you from social media that, um, you're not someone who beats around the bush, um, and that type of personality doesn't always go down well in a church leadership team. So what was that like for you?

27:56 - Meg (Guest)

so I was fortunate. I well, was I fortunate? I don't know, um, I don't know if that's the right word, but my particular situation I worked with, uh, I worked kind of in an administrative role initially and then I worked in like the care and connection so integration, new people, discipleship kind of in an administrative role initially and then I worked in like the care and connection so integration, new people, discipleship kind of space, and I was the PA to the executive pastor. So I was never a pastor, I was never a big dog leader, you know, like I was never, and so in some ways I'm so grateful for that.

28:27

But also there were certain types of people that were promoted in those spaces and I was a bit more blunt, and whether that's the ADHD that I've now discovered as I've gone further on, or whether that was my personality, to um, you know, it didn't, it didn't sit well when I did raise questions and when I did bring things up, and so I think that was probably what prevented me from really, you know, moving up through the ranks in lots of ways.

28:58

But I also, alongside all of these thinkings about what a good wife and mother would be, I actually really, really was excited to have children myself as well, so I didn't see this ever as a career path for me. It was a space that I really loved and enjoyed at the time. The church was an incredible community for us and, as young people, community was really what drew us into that space. But so, after I had worked there five years, I'd been married for three or four by then and we had our first child. And so I had worked there five years, I'd been married for three or four by then and we had our first child, and so I had a really soft exit from the church space, because that was a perfectly good and legitimate reason why a woman would leave employment was to go have the children and have the babies.

29:41 - Sam (Host)

So yeah, that's the job right.

29:44 - Meg (Guest)

That's the job yes, okay.

29:46 - Sam (Host)

So when did things start to shift for you in terms of church and faith and Christianity?

29:54 - Meg (Guest)

Probably around the time I had kids. So I remember I had such a strong memory. I had my first child and she was six days old and we had a visiting guest pastor from Australia coming and I was just so desperate to not be seen, to be not committed. Still that at six I had this six day old baby and I showed up to this church team leadership meeting thing and I just remember sitting breastfeeding my baby I still have my maternity jeans on trying to look great and tuck all my tummy in and look as best I could and I remember not even really getting to sit in the meeting. I sat in another room nearby because I was having to feed um and just thinking, wow, like this is a lot, meg, this is a lot that you're trying to do right now, um.

30:47

And so I think it was over that time and then, as I had a second child, quite quickly afterwards there's 17 months between them I was struggling with a lot of the pain stuff that was coming back in my body and those were the times where I and my husband was had also started working for the church. So we had a few years of crossover and he was um at the church, working there for eight years in the end. And so it was around that time when my youngest was about two and he was starting to get really burnt out in his role, and I was like this doesn't something's about, this is not right, that our family is so under stress and pressure. Um, I just it just didn't feel right and a lot of what I have done in life has been on gut feeling, um, and so that was when I started to question and he ended up leaving employment um with the church and he left really well, like you know it was.

31:46

It was well handled, and I have no beef there, or you know but we ended up traveling and doing a bunch of handled and I have no beef there, or you know but we ended up traveling and doing a bunch of things and I was building a business at the same time in a different field and we actually went to a church in America and it was a church for people who were burnt out on big church and I think that was what kicked off a lot of my, and so it was very different. Like the preacher didn't stand up the front, he had a stool and he sat and he was very conversational and he was very historical and they didn't even do like three fast songs, two slow songs, in that order or anything like that. They. They didn't do a tithe and offering, they just had like a little station where you could go and you could place your money if you felt that you were led to give that day.

32:38

And so it really blew my mind, going from being heavily involved and realizing that all of these questions that had been building in me for these two, three, four years while I was at home with my young kids, that there was language around them, that other people had put words around them and I wasn't the only one, because I was I was at home with my young children trying to build this business, this other business that I had, and feeling like I was really unfaithful for doubting and having these questions.

33:13 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, I'm curious about the fact that all of this sort of kick-started because of a gut feeling, because and I'm curious about that because for a lot of people, you know that intuition or that you know gut feeling, or that you know gut feeling part of us is suppressed while you're part of the church because you're not supposed to lean on your own understanding. You are supposed to divert that to either God or to an external authority in terms of like a pastor or a leader. And so what was it about that gut feeling that you were able to listen to?

33:52 - Meg (Guest)

Yeah, uh, it's a really good question. It's a really good question. What about it was? Uh, I don't know, it just got louder. Okay and okay. So I do know it got louder.

34:07

That's why I had to listen to it and I think that possibly it was because I was given that opportunity to step back a little bit, because I was with my kids and so that was kind of my good reason, like I just wasn't in services as often because I would be with the kids or you know, in in kids ministry, and so I got to step back a little bit and my body got louder and, um, I think it I can't remember who said it, oh, it was Jamie Lee Finch I heard years ago. She said a loud body is a loving body and that statement has always really stuck with me. A loud body is a loving body and I think that's what happened is my, my body just, I mean, to be fair, it was being as loud as it could with the chronic pain and the different things, but something about that time it really turned up and said you can't keep doing this, this is unsustainable, we have to think differently yeah.

35:09 - Sam (Host)

Did the changes in terms of you know we need to do this differently in terms of church and faith and God, did that impact your relationship with your husband?

35:20 - Meg (Guest)

Oh yeah of course, of course. So there was a big chunk of years where so three, four years maybe, where I was out with the kids and he was still employed by the church and so, and I was still attending church and a part of the church, but I was not as dedicated, or you know, and I had all these questions and I was actually even just, I wasn't really even bringing them up with him because I was uncertain of what I thought. So I was like I can't rock the boat, I must be the one that's, you know, just in my doubting season and my dark night of my soul or whatever, and so I didn't really bring them up until after he left church. And then we went through this process, obviously of, we were actually still involved with the church, but he left employment, and then we traveled for work and things, and so we found ourselves in America and we finally had the space to breathe and talk about some of these things. And there were obviously some much bigger things at play as well in our marriage and our relationship, and I was still struggling with the way that I felt about our sex life and those sorts of things. And so we did some over that time we did some marriage therapy with somebody outside of the church, which was quite revolutionary and and so I started to realize a whole lot of things at once. They all just kind of came together in this perfect storm, perfect healing storm, and so it definitely affected the two of us, because he still wanted to be involved with church and I was just becoming more and more unable to walk into those spaces and it got to the point where I was having physical reactions when I walked into the church. So a lot of complex PTSD stuff that came up for me as um as we left the church and in the end he was like well, I cannot continue to keep going to these spaces when clearly it's so distressing to you and your body. And so I love him for the way that he backed me and we had we, but we really did have to find ourselves kind of um and reinvent and re-meet each other.

37:43

In our relationship. There was a lot of years of tension and difference. I've talked about this on Instagram and different things, like going to my husband and saying, hey, so you know all this theology stuff that I'm packing. Yeah, I don't think you're the head of our home. You're not.

38:01

And while he had never tried to be like he doesn't have a big ego he was never trying to be the leader or enforce anything like that he had built his idea of what it meant to be a good husband around, leading us and our family. Well, and I had I mean, my vows said that I would honor and cherish him. Um, what did I say? I said something about I would honor and cherish him, um, as the leader of our home, helping make our home God-centered and welcoming to others and they. And here I was like throwing a bunch of the God stuff out and throwing a bunch of the theology out. So I was not. I was feeling like, wow, am I going against my vows to my husband here? And so, yeah, we had some real big conversations over a lot of years.

38:47 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, it's always. I find it's always really interesting when one person is further along in that deconstruction process than the other person or the other person is not deconstructing at all it. It creates an imbalance that is, I think, really hard for people to explain for for what that is like. But I'm curious what it was like for you to throw that you know out in terms of just your own sense of self and whether you know did it feel destabilizing or you know something like that. To throw away everything that sort of you know gave you certainty and stability yeah, absolutely, I was very black and white.

39:34 - Meg (Guest)

I I had a really strong sense of justice and what was right and wrong, and so it really does feel like the rug is being pulled out from underneath you and you're just trying to figure out how to stand and the people that you would usually reach out to to steady yourself are not even there. There's no, there's no shoulders to rest your hands on to find your balance, because you don't have your church community either. And again, we're fortunate that we had some good friends who we have stayed friends with through the process, but they were still in the church. Some of them were pastors in the church and and so they were really loving and kind over that time. But I I still found it incredibly destabilizing because I couldn't really share the depth of what I was going through with them with real honesty, yeah, and it feels lonely, right, when you're in that place, and I think that that's I mean, that's kind of where this podcast even came from was.

40:37 - Sam (Host)

you know, there are so many people out there who think that they're the only people who are going through this, and they're not. You know, there are stacks of us who have been there, who are still there, and to try and minimise some of that loneliness and that isolation, because it's tough, yeah yeah, it's so hard, it's um, it's one of those things like we do heal in relationship often, like it's really hard to heal in isolation.

41:11 - Meg (Guest)

And so when I was studying psychology and I remember them talking about the different circles and one of them being like civic engagement in the world, one social one, your workplace, one emotional and talking about finding balance and realizing, as we looked at this particular activity we were doing in this training and realizing, wow, like I didn't have four different circles where I could find stability and a lot of people who are in church don't, like my employment was, so that circle was the church. Then stack on top my civic responsibility and contribution to the world. Everything I was doing for the good of society, it was done through the lens of my church involvement. My social interactions, all of my social world were my church and then my emotional well-being and health and all of those things were connected to my faith in God. So I had four circles stacked on top of each other.

42:10

So usually somebody, if, if one kind of falls down, you can reach into the other and you can find some stability or some meaning or some positive engagement in the world. But when you have those four circles stacked on top of each other. It's, and I was in that activity and I remember saying to Dr Denise, who was one of the lecturers there like Denise, I just suddenly realized why this was so incredibly destabilizing, because all my circles were stacked on top of each other. Yeah, it was a real moment. Yeah.

42:47 - Sam (Host)

What was the process like for you to come back to your body?

42:53 - Meg (Guest)

Yeah, oh, good yeah good oh good, yeah, okay, like I just wish that people and this is why I have a job in this space is why I went and retrained and studied and and why I specifically have gone into the really somatic space with it as well. So, really, that connection between body and mind a lot of the questions you've asked me today you've talked about how was it for you? And I've said it was very conflicting, it was very dual, and so the process of healing was really about that integration and coming back together and bringing these things all into my body and understanding and connecting my mind and my heart and my body all together. So it was so, so healing and continues to be the healing work to do things that are about integrated decision making and embodied agency and feeling a sense of it's okay to stop and ask my body what, what does she need here? And in fact, it's not just okay, it's good.

43:58

She's got good information, she's got good wisdom, knowing that feelings can show up and I don't have to push them away or act immediately on them. I can just simply be with them and go. Oh hey, thanks for those beautiful messages. I see them, I honor them. I'm going to figure out what I want to do with them and take my time sitting with that wisdom in my body and figuring that out and yeah, it's been beautiful do you still find that there are days where the lingering impact of purity culture is there?

44:32

uh, less and less the love. Further I go through this like I love that. I really I really don't think about it a lot of the time for myself, apart from the fact that I'm in this work. So I do think about purity culture a lot, but, um, for myself there's not very many of those ways now which I think is important for people to hear and encouraging for people to hear, like I now, like most of the time I look at my body and I go, wow, she's done good things. You know she's carried babies and and not that's the only good thing she can do, but but she's walked through countries and embraced strangers and embraced friends and you know she's done a lot of really cool stuff and so I have a great love and fondness for my body.

45:21

Now I think, if anything, what I'm processing through at the moment is aging and how that relates to my body, which I don't think necessarily has purity culture roots. So I think, but there are elements of staying looking pretty and what that means to be a wife. That's, you know, like you got patriarchy roots then yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

45:45 - Sam (Host)

So it's all connected right, it's all connected.

45:48 - Meg (Guest)

But, um, yeah, I think in terms of, like, my relationship with my husband and how I feel about sex and those sorts of things, like, no, I don't do a huge amount of thinking about purity culture now. I do a lot more embodied stuff and enjoying pleasure and those sorts of things.

46:06 - Sam (Host)

I love that and I think that is important because I think it gives people hope that you know, if they are struggling with those aspects of their upbringing, that there is healing and that healing is possible and wholeness is possible. Okay, I'm going to ask this question a little bit differently than the last time, because you're obviously in a different space. But where is your renewed sense of spirituality at now, as opposed to a relationship with god?

46:42 - Meg (Guest)

yeah, I really feel like I take the time to sit with the wonder of the mystery of it all. That is where I find, you know, the people have asked me before how do you take care of your spirit, how do you take care of your soul? And I'm like I nourish her by sitting in mystery and going. It's okay to sit in that mystery. Um, I had a really, really beautiful, interesting plant medicine experience as well a while ago some time ago now which really helped me to sit in this space of wow.

47:23

And so, personally for me, while I I respect people who are Christians, who are ex-faith, all of that I work with people across the board and it's not my job to tell anybody what to believe, right, but for myself, I've come to a place where I really feel like God is not a thing, but God is in everything. There's an opportunity to see God in very many different ways and in the mystery of those different things of humanity, of, and not that everything is a god, but but that there is this spark of divinity to be seen in really beautiful, mysterious ways, not just in the certainty of the story we were told through the bible yeah, oh, I love that.

48:13 - Sam (Host)

It reminds me of um I don't actually know who says it, but um jane, our good friend jane, always brings it up which is that someone said that god is the ground of all being, and I love that. Um, I love the idea of sitting in the mystery. I think that that's equally poetic as it is um enticing um, so I love that yeah um, okay, I've been finishing all of these episodes by asking what would you say to somebody who is deep in their deconstruction real simple.

48:49 - Meg (Guest)

Your questions are good your questions are beautiful.

48:53

They'll lead you to great places, um. They'll lead you through some twists and turns and there might be some dark days and nights, but ultimately, know that it is good to ask questions and, alongside that, that your body is good and that your body is working to protect you, even if you don't like the ways that it's doing that sometimes. Your body is good. Your questions are good. I remember early in my deconstruction we had a family friend who was an Anglican minister, so in more of those traditional liturgical sorts of spaces, and as even my husband and I were wrestling with the different places that we were in, he to us. You know, this journey that you're on, this pilgrimage, this questioning, this, asking this is an ancient path and many people have walked it before you and it will lead you to great things. But it's an ancient path and that gave me a lot of hope and also perspective that I'm not the only person to have done this and questioning is a really can be a beautiful thing and a really great thing.

50:08 - Sam (Host)

I love that, and I mean, people won't be hearing this on Good Friday, but I think that's a really good way to end, which is your body is good, your questions are good, you are good. I love that. I think that's a really great um, what a beautiful way to end. Thank you so much for joining me, oh thanks for having me.

50:29 - Meg (Guest)

It's, um, it's actually so beautiful to sit and reflect on your own story, and so thanks for making the space and I just hope that there are little snippets of what I've shared that people hear and they don't feel so alone that they know that in, in this journey, in this process, um, yeah, you're not, you're not alone, you're not broken.

50:47 - Sam (Host)

Yeah, you're good absolutely thanks, meg bye. 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. If you enjoyed the episode, be sure to subscribe, leave a review and share it with others who might benefit from these stories. Stay connected with us on social media for updates and more content. I love connecting with all of you. Remember, remember, no matter where you are in your journey, you're not alone. Until next time, keep exploring, keep questioning and keep moving forward. Take care.