25: You Can Trust Yourself with Sarah Hunt

[00:00:00] The host of our podcast, where we'll collectively share our stories and experiences of leaving high control religion, along with what it's been like for us to find new practices that help us feel good and confident in ourselves.

[00:00:48] I hope that hearing these stories reminds you that your deconstruction is valid and most of all that you are not alone on this journey. You are good, you are loved and you are worthy just as you are. Hello Deconstructionists!

[00:01:02] My guest today is Sarah Hunt who uses sheher pronouns. She is a mental health and sex therapist based in West Michigan. She loves helping others recover from purity culture and sexual shame and learn how to access and trust their intuition.

[00:01:17] She is a queer, ex-fiangellical who is passionate about access to sex education, sleeping in and her cat. So thank you for being here, Sarah. I also love sex education, sleeping in and my cat. So amazing! I love it! We're thinking someone's for having me.

[00:01:32] Yeah, of course. I'm sure we'll talk about all the work that you do in mental health field and helping people come out of purity culture.

[00:01:41] But before we do, can you give us a little background about your church experience? So we know the flavor of church you're coming from.

[00:01:47] Yeah, sure. So I was raised in West Michigan in a very conservative family and our church experience varied from Baptist to Christian reformed to Nandanam and Evangelical Covenant.

[00:02:03] So we kind of jumped around. But I grew up going to church every Sunday, I want everyone's day listening to adventures and advocacy when we were in the car.

[00:02:13] All of our media was first vetted by my parents to focus on this family. So pretty much everything we did was filtered through the question how is this honoring to go.

[00:02:25] As I grew up and you know gotten to high school, I took on every leadership role in the church that I could.

[00:02:32] I was a student leader of my high school small group, one on international mission trips which you know we now know is just a form of white Christian superiority complex and college Asian. Yeah. Was this a public high school or a Christian high school?

[00:02:48] So I went to a Christian school, K through eighth grade and then public school for high school. Okay. Yeah. So I very, very thankful that I had that experience and it was kind of interesting how even though we are allowed to go to a public high school,

[00:03:02] it was very much like this is an opportunity to be in the field and you know be a light for Christ light in the darkness. Yes. Yes. It's a very, very dark wonderful high school. That was a great experience.

[00:03:17] Yeah. But I did a lot of like in the evening to college, like a lot of the analyzing. I would like plant fibles at my workplace. The whole should thing. Yeah. You were you were doing your job that you were taught we had to do right?

[00:03:31] Yeah. Yeah. Part of me still like even still gets embarrassed to admit some of these things and you know at the same time I know that like I was doing the best I could.

[00:03:42] I was doing what I knew and yeah, they're still like some shame from like the fear mongering that I participated in toward others. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I find those two feelings come up to like embarrassment and shame thinking about my Christian self.

[00:03:57] Like I just recorded an episode where I read like a letter to my future husband like I did that whole thing.

[00:04:05] And it's so embarrassing. It's like that's not my voice. That's not who I am. And part of me's like, oh my god, I don't want to share that with anyone.

[00:04:13] And then another part of me's like, but so many of us did that and we were just doing what we were told is like the right thing to do.

[00:04:20] Right. So yeah, I definitely feel that like embarrassment sometimes and also shame about the things that I was teaching people to that.

[00:04:29] Yeah, like people taught me these things that were harmful and then I went and taught them to other people as well. And yeah, that's just something that we kind of have to own on the other side of this that's hard.

[00:04:39] Right. What did it feel like being in a public high school after being in a Christian school, K8? It felt exciting about relieving. So my elementary and middle school experience there was like 11 kids in my grade.

[00:04:53] So it was very much like a an in between from home school to like actual school. It was a real school, but it's almost like the size of like a co-op or something like a home co-op exactly.

[00:05:06] So it was just very exciting. I was very extroverted and there was more sports at the public high school, which I loved. I was a swimmer and a lot of my swimming friends went to that high school.

[00:05:17] So for the most part, it was a really great experience. And I wouldn't say there was too much conflict with my Christian identity there. And then where did you go to college or like was it a Christian college or a public college?

[00:05:31] Yeah, I went to we in college. Oh nice in Chicago. Is that right? Yes. Yeah, just outside Chicago. Okay. It's kind of fun and like exciting that I'm losing some of the like I used to be able to tell you like where all the Christian college is.

[00:05:46] And now I'm like, is it Chicago? And there's something nice about being a little more distance from it. You know. Yeah, I feel that so much. I was actually trying to think of a Bible verse the other day.

[00:05:56] Yeah, like reference something and I couldn't like remember it. I was like, this is amazing. It's such a good feeling. Yes.

[00:06:03] It felt so good. Yeah. Okay. So I went to Gordon College, which is on the North Shore of Massachusetts and we in always felt like the classier older sister to Gordon is how I like.

[00:06:16] How I imagined we in, but yeah, very much similar to I think my my college. Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, I've heard of Gordon.

[00:06:24] Okay. So were you like still in the church all through your experience at we in and what was your experience there like so I was still very much in the church loved learning how to be a better evangelist there.

[00:06:38] And I could have liked things experiences just in general because I would grew up in a small town and very driven and when I went to college like we in there was just like so much pressure there to be super successful to be the perfect Christian to be the most marriageable to be all of the things.

[00:07:03] And so my mental health actually got really, really bad when I was in college just because there was so much pressure and even like competition to be this perfect human that doesn't exist.

[00:07:16] Yeah, that's very much like my impression of we in what I mean like I said it's like the classier older sister of Gordon.

[00:07:24] And yeah, that there was like this pressure to be very high achieving and I think they provided themselves on good academics and I think it seems like they did have pretty good academics. Yeah, did you get like a good actual education there?

[00:07:39] Yeah, I would say that I did definitely stretched me a lot and I learned a lot. I loved my professors.

[00:07:45] Amazing anthropology professor who only was there a couple years to his fantastic I think she's at Duke now, but okay yeah I would say it was it was a good education and a lot of my best friends are still from there. Mm-hmm.

[00:07:58] Yeah, so when did you start to shift out of religion? So I would say that the beginning scenes of my deconstruction journey happened when I went to E.N.

[00:08:11] So even though it was a Christian college, my eyes were really opened by the fact that there were Christians there who interpreted the Bible differently than me.

[00:08:21] And so that like shocked and also excited me because I grew up being totally there's a very specific way that you have to believe in order to be a Christian and others who claimed to be Christian really aren't or they're lukewarm or whatever.

[00:08:36] So at the beginning of my college experience, I was like oh you can be you know a Christian and believed different things which kind of first got my like

[00:08:46] gears turning that there are the ways to believe. And then I would say like fast forward five years, I was out of school living in Chicago and the guy I was dating at the time had started listening to the liturgist podcast

[00:09:01] and at first that terrified me and felt like a slippery slope, but the more I listened the more I was like the emphasis makes sense. Yeah, yeah.

[00:09:11] So like ultimately the thing that I was most torn by that really caused me to question the church further was that I just could not believe that queerness is a sin.

[00:09:24] And like funnily enough, I feel like a lot of people who deconstruct fine is that the more that I saw the truth, the more that I saw God, the further away from Christianity I got.

[00:09:37] It's like the more that I learned the more I realized this doesn't add up. Yeah, I feel that so much too. I'm like I dove deeper in and then it's like I dove so deep in that I actually ended up out.

[00:09:53] And thinking about you listening to the podcast, what other ideas in addition to like queerness, what other ideas felt like this doesn't add up anymore.

[00:10:02] Yeah, so the way I was raised was very much like the people in leadership that people that we trust are men and women just don't know as much women aren't as good leaders and that just didn't make sense to me.

[00:10:16] Once I realized that I'm allowed to interpret the Bible differently and was almost like given the idea that the Holy Spirit can help me interpret the Bible how it's meant for me.

[00:10:27] Then allowed me the question, I guess ask questions that I had never felt comfortable or that I was allowed to ask before, which led me to just see that my lived experience didn't match up to what I was being told.

[00:10:41] And part of that actually was a class in grad school, so I'm at therapist. I got my master of social work in Chicago and one of my classes was on power oppression and diversity.

[00:10:53] And in that class we all had to go around and say our biases. And what we were bringing into the room and I had never before been a part of a group of people that was so diverse in terms of race and gender and religions and so many other factors as well.

[00:11:13] And I'm like these are the coolest people I've ever met and none of them were Christian.

[00:11:19] And that didn't add up to me that these people were so like social justice oriented, so loving so much more like Christ that and so many Christians that I knew and I think that was another one of the really big catalyst for me to be like okay something's off here.

[00:11:37] I feel like I keep being like oh my god me too, but I feel so much connection to your story.

[00:11:43] I feel like the non-Christian friends that I found as I was leaving Christianity, I noticed they feel so much more Christ than the Christians that I have been in contact with or like the Christians that are so vocal feel nothing like Christ or like the Christ that I learned about and had learned to like love and respect.

[00:12:05] And I think about my closest friend today is such a wonderful person she grew up Jewish but is like atheistic, not stick and I saw like more Jesus and her than I saw in anybody and anybody in the church you know. And that was big for me too.

[00:12:22] Yeah it was so important to meet people outside of the church in a capacity that I was not trying to evangelize them. Yeah, yeah so tell us a little more about your deconstruction and what it felt like for you what it looked like.

[00:12:37] Yeah so I feel like I had a really interesting experience because so at the time that I had taken this class I was be like assistant to the pastor at the church I was going to I was also the hospitality coordinator and the leader of a woman's fun group.

[00:12:55] So I was like shit what do I do? Because I'm like I'm not really believing this stuff. I feel like I can't be leading a group of women and something that I don't believe in.

[00:13:05] And thankfully that summer one of my internships for God's School I was doing in Mexico. And so it was kind of a natural break for me to step down from leading the small group because I was going to be gone for a few months.

[00:13:20] I also stepped down from working at the church because I was going to be starting my career as a therapist. And at the time I spoke very little Spanish and so I had pretty much three months in a place that I couldn't speak the language to think.

[00:13:40] So it was a reflect and to read and one of the books that I had brought with me was by Rachel Hold Evans. Faith and rattle have you read that one?

[00:13:51] I don't think I've read that one but I love Rachel Hold Evans very special place in my heart for her. Same same.

[00:14:00] So that book really really helps give me, I think, the words to my experience and also a sense of freedom that I'm not really going to be. That I'm not doing something wrong and that I can.

[00:14:14] I don't know that at that time I yet felt like I could trust myself but at least felt like I could trust other people who I really respected and I really respected her. Another book that I read was I think it's called Velvet Elvis.

[00:14:27] Is that rattle or yeah, that's rattle okay yeah so I guess I'm basically to answer a question what it looked like was me sitting in a hammock in Mexico for a few months.

[00:14:37] Like in between my research and interviews for my internship reflecting and I think what was really really helpful and important for me was being away from my church community at the time.

[00:14:48] I can't imagine having had the strength to do it being surrounded by my community with all of the pressures and accountability and prayers and all of that. And then when I got back from Mexico, I decided that I wasn't going to go back to church.

[00:15:05] And what was that like did you feel like you lost some community there? Like did you have people outside of the church that you were kind of in community with already or what did that look like.

[00:15:16] Yeah, it was hard I think at first because it was such a huge life transition there was so much going on in my mind I was also going into my last year of grad school.

[00:15:28] So I hadn't yet settled into the like loneliness that I have like since found and I was living in downtown Chicago too.

[00:15:36] So I was surrounded by a lot of people and a lot of my friends were really open and supportive of me not necessarily of where I was headed but I didn't feel rejected by my friends there which was really great so I still had some sense of community.

[00:15:52] I wasn't going to church or talking about God or like going to a sloth or bring something like that. And were you pretty open with them about where you were like and what you were thinking and the questions that you had?

[00:16:04] I think I was pretty reserved at first. At least with my friends who I knew were still in the church.

[00:16:11] I had some friends who had since left or were kind of in a similar places me who I talked with but for the most part like people at church.

[00:16:20] I think I was pretty vague about it like I didn't say I'm done with church or not a Christian I just said I'm going into busy season of grad school I'm going to take a break.

[00:16:29] Yeah, so I was not super direct about it because I don't think I was ready to talk about it yet because I still didn't really understand what was happening for myself.

[00:16:38] Well, that's what I was going to ask next is did you know for yourself like did you know those things to be true for yourself even like were you saying like I'm not going to go back to church or were you saying to yourself this is just a busy season and so I'm going to take a little break.

[00:16:52] I think I knew at that time I just didn't know yet what I was going to do about it.

[00:16:58] Okay, yeah because it went against every my entire life and so I knew but I think it was just kind of like registering and I was trying to figure out what does this mean for me what does this mean for my future.

[00:17:13] Yeah, so I think play I was able to be really honest with myself and it was just so freeing. I just felt a lot of relief and I felt very free. I started to date and I felt a lot more comfortable with my body that was very exciting.

[00:17:29] I feel like this is a common experience too for people who have deconstructed later that like my sexual debut was like 10 years later than most people. But so that was a very exciting time I have lots of you know happy chemicals going through.

[00:17:47] Yeah, and I love to that you call today sexual debut and not like a losing of virginity or something you know however, however it was framed for you but always some sort of loss rather than like oh look at this journey I've started in a new way for myself right right and I think that's partly why I have become so passionate.

[00:18:09] about helping others who have come out of purity culture and I love being a sex therapist part of it is my own experience of realizing like our bodies are not bad. Our bodies are for us to do whatever the heck we want to.

[00:18:27] We want with and that can be a really hard transition when it's in green to you that you are bad, you are dirty, you are gross and the pull-plot their other messages that we got.

[00:18:38] Yeah, yeah can you talk a little bit about the work that you do and what that looks like with your clients to help them come out of this.

[00:18:45] Yeah, so I do individual and couples therapy so it's very different for each client that comes in some people will come in specifically for like a sexual functioning concern like differences in desire with couples or I do get a lot of queer clients I would say most of my clients are queer.

[00:19:06] And or like questioning or exploring their sexuality or gender in some way and so a lot of the work I do is kind of teasing through what messages were you raised with what messages are you still holding on to.

[00:19:22] And which ones do you want to still hold on to and which ones do you want to let go of.

[00:19:27] I also do a lot of trauma works I do EMDR therapy as well both with religious trauma and other types of trauma too so I feel like it's kind of all over the place but I also really love that because I'm never bored and I've thought about coming up with a more like a structure for sessions, but I have just found everyone is so unique that each of my clients like have a very.

[00:19:52] Individualized plan and process.

[00:19:55] Mm-hmm yeah that makes sense I feel like in my own therapy something that my therapist has done is like everyday every like session that I come in it's like what's feeling most present for you and sometimes I'm surprised by the things that I end up talking about and I'm like okay, like I know what I'm going to talk about today and then it ends up going somewhere else and I realized recently that like

[00:20:21] I've been able to honor myself more and like my own thoughts and intuitions and like warning signs that come up for me because every week in therapy it starts out with a purpose of like what is feeling most present for you and to have that space where

[00:20:37] The only point is to sit and listen to my own self has helped me to do that outside of that space too so I guess what I'm saying is thank you for the work that you do as a therapist and creating space for your clients to

[00:20:51] To take sessions wherever they need to go and honoring people where they're at I think that's such a beautiful thing. Yeah, yeah, I absolutely love what I do I would not trade it for anything and I think to kind of what you were saying

[00:21:05] As I was thinking about coming on this podcast today, I was like, what what has then you know the most impactful in my

[00:21:12] Deconstruction journey and I think when I think back to one of the beliefs that I think was possibly the most harmful or damaging that I internalized from my background or from religion was that I can't And shouldn't trust myself

[00:21:28] That I didn't know what was good for me and not only that but anything that came from my own thoughts or desires was of the flesh Make a from state in itself right right yeah, like of the flesh means bad

[00:21:42] But like our flesh is just a part of us right also why do we always call it the flesh? Like what a weird word. Good. We know I don't know

[00:21:49] Yeah, but basically I learned to shut off my bodies cues reject my intuition and not make any decision for myself And so all of those things have led to a wonderful life long experience that we call anxiety

[00:22:07] And so that's you know, that's also a lot of what the work that I do with my clients is like okay, you can trust yourself And what does that even look like how do we get there from complete disregard of your own desires and intuition and autonomy?

[00:22:26] Yeah, and can you talk a little bit about how you got there and what listening to your intuition looks like for yourself

[00:22:34] Yes, so I think that a lot of it has been in like the question of like okay, so if I don't believe in a God what do I believe in or if I don't have a set of rules coming from a book what are my rules and realizing there are none.

[00:22:55] And so what does that mean? What are my own values? I think it's really been in figuring out what do I value outside of what I was told I'm supposed to value.

[00:23:08] And then with that getting back in touch with feeling my body and that came with therapy lots and lots of therapy.

[00:23:17] So what that looks like now today is when I notice myself starting to like dissociate or if my partner asks me where I want to go to eat and I'm like, I don't know and I'm like wait no I do know I'm defaulting to externalizing my choices okay, I will close my eyes

[00:23:37] and take a big breath. And kind of let the anxiety settle and one question that has helped me and still does today too is like if no one else was impacted by this choice what choice that I make.

[00:23:53] And that can help me even in making the smallest decisions of like where do I want to go to eat or if there was no like good bad right or wrong about my choices.

[00:24:05] Because I think when I was disconnected from my body all of my choices were based on what is right, what is wrong and now that I don't have that question I'm just left with my body.

[00:24:18] Yeah that's such a helpful way to think about it because all of our decisions had eternal consequences in the church and you can't just like turn that off.

[00:24:29] But to think like what if this decision didn't affect anybody else then what would you decide that's such a helpful way to kind of like take it out of this like life or death situation even when it's something as simple as like where are you going to go to dinner because I think the

[00:24:48] places where we start to actually learn how to listen to ourself is in these like really small moments not like it doesn't feel like a big thing at first like it's all the small decisions and then suddenly you build up these muscles for listening to yourself and suddenly you're like no I actually know who I am and what I want but like it doesn't happen overnight, you know for sure.

[00:25:10] Yeah it easy to want a step by step plan that will take one hour or one week but unfortunately it's not that easy and also too I do want to say that asking myself like that question of if this didn't impact anyone else what would I do or what would I want that doesn't mean I don't consider other people you know desires in a feeling of course.

[00:25:31] But I at least know that I'm also allowed to have an opinion I'm allowed to have my own wants and desires so that might look like I want Mexican tonight how does that sound to you and if he's like.

[00:25:45] I don't know then we can have a conversation about it but even to get to the point of knowing that I want Mexican tonight is huge success to me compared to where I was you know when I was in the church.

[00:25:58] And I think that's such a helpful helpful thing to add to is that it's not that you're not taking other people's needs into consideration either but I think that we have been taught to like you said like externalize these things for so long that it's really hard to get in touch with what we want and we can't have a conversation with somebody about our wants and needs if we don't know how to identify our own and name them right.

[00:26:30] I'm curious about your own journey coming into your own queer identity and queer sexuality and what that looked like for you and can you talk a little more about that. Yes, I love this question okay so.

[00:26:44] When I was growing up there was only one option the option was well I guess there was a couple options in terms of gender you are either a woman or your man.

[00:26:56] In terms of sexuality you are straight or you have to be relevant if you are any other than straight and so I just was like okay yeah fine, I'm a straight woman that was what I thought because that's what I was told I was.

[00:27:12] And a lot of my friends were in our queer so for a long time I was just like yep, I am an ally like there's nothing wrong with being gay or trans or queer whatever.

[00:27:25] And I didn't really give much thought to it for myself because I just like had been told what I am and I just like accepted that along with like a lot of other parts of my life.

[00:27:37] And so I just got I was getting more involved in different programs and organizations and I was on the board of key flag miskegen, which is an organization that supports queer people and their friends and families.

[00:27:50] And basically just like the more that I got involved with queer social justice and advocacy, the more that I learned about the different options of sexuality and gender. And that there's more than just gay and straight and by.

[00:28:06] And that was like open to the whole new world for me learning about like, and sexual and demi-sexual and that there's a difference between sexual attraction and romantic attraction.

[00:28:16] So really the more that I learned about the concept of sexuality and gender through my advocacy work, the more I was like, I am definitely not straight. And I don't want to get to you. I'm so I guess I will leave it there.

[00:28:34] This is not a very like I mean we get into a lot of things on this podcast so feel free to go wherever you want, but also you can feel free to leave it there.

[00:28:44] Yeah, so basically as I learned about other options, the more I'm like, oh my gosh, this this is what I am. So I usually don't get into like the nitty-gritty that I usually just use the word queer, but as far as I understand for the options and words that we know.

[00:28:59] I am demi-sexual and pan romantic is what feels like the words that that's for my experience. And interestingly, as I realized this, I already was in a very serious relationship with my now husband.

[00:29:16] And I was like, okay well what do I do with this information? I'm dating the straight cis man and I'm like discovering this whole new side of me. What do I do about that?

[00:29:28] And I think that's an interesting place to be and it's not really like talked about a whole lot.

[00:29:34] And so I don't really know where to go with that other than if feels good to know like I can be who I am and who I'm with doesn't change that.

[00:29:45] Well I think there's this idea that like you're not queer enough or something and I think people who find themselves in a queer sexuality in had a wrong normative looking relationships, I think can feel this come in a lot.

[00:30:00] And to you and anybody else out there you are queer enough and yeah, I think it's just easy to feel like it's not a real thing because you can present as had a wrong normative in your relationship. Right and I definitely recognize the privilege that comes with that.

[00:30:19] And that I didn't have the experience that so many unfortunately have who know when they're young and are in the church and have to go through the horrible things that the church does to people who are not cisgender or heterosexual.

[00:30:36] Yeah, absolutely. What does the word queer mean to you because I feel like that can go a lot of different places which I think is also part of the word queer but yeah what does that mean to you and how did you kind of take on that word as part of your identity?

[00:30:52] Yeah, so in terms of like my own identity, I like using the word queer because they feel like not everyone knows what demisexual and panoramantic mean.

[00:31:02] I also don't feel like I need to explain to people why those are my identities, like I don't need to divulge my personal sex life.

[00:31:12] So you know to anyone so to me queer kind of just encompasses, okay this is letting people know that I am somewhere within the realm of queer and there's I don't know if you've ever heard the quote by bellhooks.

[00:31:27] Don't know it verbatim but she says something to the effect of like queer is not about who you're having sex with, but as being in odds with everything that is considered out of no quote on quote normal. I think they are much more eloquently than that.

[00:31:44] Care I pulled up the quote, do you want to read it? Oh that'd be perfect thank you. Yes, okay queer not as being about who you're having sex with that can be a dimension of it but queer as being about the self that is at odds with everything around it and that has to invent and create and find a place to speak into thrive and to live.

[00:32:03] Yeah, that's so beautiful. I'm also you did a pretty good job of seeing that was pretty close to verbatim. Yeah that's really beautiful. So it kind of is ironic in that it surpasses even the definition of like having a definition.

[00:32:18] Almost. Yeah can you talk a little more about the difference between sexual attraction and romantic attraction? So romantic attraction would be feelings that are directed towards someone that bring a sense of closeness or there might be like excitement.

[00:32:40] You might have a crush on this person, maybe you're some extra drop for little when they text you.

[00:32:46] You really enjoy being around this person in a way that is not platonic. So it feels a little bit more special and exciting than someone who you would consider a platonic relationship or someone that you like as a friend.

[00:33:01] So an elementary terms, it's someone that you'd like like. But there aren't necessarily it doesn't have to be and is not always connected to a desire to have sexual experiences with that person. And so I love that these are distinct because not everyone has sexual attraction towards someone.

[00:33:22] You can find someone physically attractive and not have sexual thoughts toward them. And even the like physical attractiveness can be separate from romantic attraction. So getting into like sexual attraction that is sexual feelings or sexual excitement that is directed toward someone else.

[00:33:39] And you might have sexual attraction to someone that you're not romantically or emotionally attracted to. And maybe you find someone that you're both romantically and emotionally attracted to and sexually and physically, but they don't have to do.

[00:33:53] How do you help your clients figure some of this out for themselves? And I'm thinking about clients specifically coming out of purity culture who have been around these very black and white, this or that decisions that they've had to or not decisions.

[00:34:07] There's no there's no decision that we get in this process but like these, you know, this are that kind of options and categories that we're put into how do you help them kind of expand that and play around with like what are their own desires.

[00:34:22] Yeah, so it's not a simple process and it definitely depends on where they are when they come in. So that might look like talking about what is black and white thinking.

[00:34:34] What is either or thinking and how does that help you and how is that maybe not so helpful? How has this served you in the past and is this still serving you.

[00:34:45] And so asking ourselves some of those questions is a way to not, you know, tell my clients like you are wrong for thinking this way or this is a bad way of thinking. But just like what has been helpful and what is is no longer helpful.

[00:35:01] And so oftentimes what we find is black and white thinking is not so helpful. And so we talk a lot about like dialectical thinking that multiple things to meet you at the same time.

[00:35:13] And there's different like worksheets or exercises that I'll do with clients. There's a couple that some fine particular helpful. There's like the gender bread person or the gender unicorn. That's a diagram that can help differentiate between gender identity gender expression, sexes and it for romantic attraction sexual attraction.

[00:35:38] And there's different like scales next to all of these items that you can kind of map out how you feel where you feel like you fall.

[00:35:47] And we talk about how sexuality and even gender can change over time. How we felt at one point in our life might be different than how we feel now, how we feel now might be different than how we feel in the future. And that's okay.

[00:36:02] Yeah I love that like open to changing because like we changed you know not the same person I was five years ago and I hope in five years I'm not the same person that I am today you know exactly.

[00:36:12] Is there anything else that you want to share about like purity culture, sexuality anything else around this topic probably a lot of things. I'm trying to think of the time in my head.

[00:36:23] I would say one thing that I have become very passionate about is the teaching in purity culture that it is the woman's duty to satisfy her husband. Very few things piss me off more than that. That one that gets me so mad. Yes, please talk about that.

[00:36:44] I mean many, many things piss me off but that one really really gets me and has been a really hard one for me to unlearn in particular the teachings that kind of went along with that are that men can't control themselves sexually. So every woman becomes a threat.

[00:37:06] And I think that along with the like being taught to not trust myself has done the most the image in terms of how I feel about other women and the judgment that I have had toward other women out of fear because I was told women are temptresses and all of these things that come with it.

[00:37:25] So the amount like the healing and relief and freedom that can come when you are able to unlearn that conditioning is unparalleled.

[00:37:38] Like the like releasing of the self-objectification that we are conditioned into is so so important in being able to even know what you want sexually and knowing what you like outside of this idea I need to like

[00:37:54] what he wants or like so that he continues to want me so he doesn't want someone else which also gets into the scarcity mindset and that just doesn't have to exist. And it's so limiting to our sexuality and to our relationships.

[00:38:10] Have you read Linda K. Klein's pure? Yes, so good.

[00:38:16] So good. As you started talking about this, I'm remembering a quote of hers that I had to pull up. She said men are taught that their minds are evil women are taught that their bodies are and that quote hits me so much like every time it comes up every time I read it somewhere.

[00:38:32] It's like purity culture has done damage to both men and women and we learned that our bodies are scary and like can cause people eternal damage, you know because we're causing people to sin.

[00:38:47] And men learn that their minds are dangerous because they can't control themselves and neither of those things are true right.

[00:38:55] So how much that contributes to our rape culture and right myths that we believe is so so so damaging and dangerous. Yes, because like if we truly believe that men can't control themselves

[00:39:11] and women's bodies are dangerous then like of course the natural conclusion that you're going to draw is that it's a woman's fault when something like rape happens, which it's not obviously.

[00:39:23] I'm going to say that to be explicit about that but like these teachings might seem like silly and kind of I roll in the surface but they're so dangerous and they lead to they lead to really dangerous situations.

[00:39:46] To switch back to your deconstruction a little bit what has been the hardest part and the most rewarding part of your deconstruction.

[00:39:55] What's such a good question. I would say the hardest part has been navigating family and not wanting to disappoint them so that has been the hardest and the most did you say rewarding.

[00:40:10] Yeah, the most rewarding has been I would say this sense of freedom and the release of self hate and self-loathing and wanting to die. Maybe sounds really dark but when you're told the earth sucks and heaven is the best you want to die and we've not did.

[00:40:30] I mean there's a verse and I don't know where which is again okay a kind of movement but you know that like to live as Christ to die is gained it's like we were supposed to want to die.

[00:40:42] That was what was the best reward was to go to heaven and it was like suffering to be here on earth.

[00:40:50] Yeah, totally so I would say like the freedom and like enjoying life like I have found myself even like I'll be walking and if I see a bug on the ground I'll be going actually want to look and I will look at this bug and I get up close I feel like a little kid.

[00:41:06] But before I didn't think that anything on this earth mattered like it was irrelevant to me because I was so laser focused on just converting people for Christ and trying to be a godly woman so a man would want me.

[00:41:21] And now I get to be fascinated by bugs and and I get to enjoy sunset and I feel like I enjoy life so much more I like life and I also and I you asked me one thing but I would say to not feeling like I have to change anyone.

[00:41:40] Yes, but I can just accept people for who they are and it is not my job to change them and that I don't even need to figure out there's no like who's right and who's wrong people can just be and I'm allowed to just be.

[00:41:54] I feel that so much and and it's been so fun to get to know people and to see all these different parts of them that before it was like I have to try to change you or convince you of something and how it's like you just get to get to know them.

[00:42:09] Yeah, wonderful. Where are you now in terms of like spirituality or religion? Do you identify any certain way or you just kind of taking a day by day?

[00:42:21] So I don't like go around like proclaiming that I am anything in particular, but I think like the category most fall into would be.

[00:42:30] I don't believe in a God, but I also don't believe that can be known and that doesn't scare me so I just very much value and focus on the here and now.

[00:42:43] I've been really getting into the attitudes of mindfulness lately and that has brought a really beautiful sense of like connection to myself, connection to the world, the universe.

[00:42:56] So yeah, in terms of like spirituality, I would say I just I find like connection and peace and nature and dancing, sex feels very spiritual to me.

[00:43:09] Food is a very spiritual experience for me. So really the present moment. I know that's not like a religion or spirituality but that's what kind of sense center is me.

[00:43:22] So I love that and I love that like three of those things, dancing, sex and food are all related to your body and your physical being more than that too, but they also have you know there's such a big part of that that's related to your body.

[00:43:38] And I love that that feels so important to you after coming out of a religion where we weren't supposed to listen to our bodies. Great. Okay, as I last question, what encouragement would you offer the deconstructing person right now?

[00:43:54] I would say that as scary as it feels, you can trust yourself. I love that. And there is nothing wrong with you. You are not broken. It's a perfect way to end.

[00:44:09] If listeners want to connect with you and find out more about what you do, where can they reach out? So I'm most active on Instagram and my handle is you bloom therapy. So that's why OU, the L-O-O-M-T-H-E-R-A-P-Y. So same as my website, you bloom therapy.com.

[00:44:30] And right now in order to work with me, I'm licensed in Michigan and I'm in the process of getting licensed in Illinois. Also, it's super excited to share that this summer I'll be opening up coaching and group offerings too. Oh, very cool. They tuned for that.

[00:44:46] Okay. And I'm sure all of that information will be on your website. Yeah. Great. Website and Instagram. Awesome. Cool. And I'll link all of that in the show notes. So listeners can connect with you easily. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for being here, Sarah.

[00:44:58] Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Thanks for listening to another episode of Hello Deconstructionists. If you enjoyed this episode or any others, please like, follow or subscribe to the podcast.

[00:45:10] And if you feel like it, leave us a review so other people know what this show is all about. If you have any questions, comments or parts of your own experience you'd like to share on the podcast, you can email me at Hello.Decons at Gmail.com

[00:45:22] and as always, you can find me over on Instagram at Hello, UnderSports, Deconstructionists. We're together. We are building community posts even jellocosem. Huge thank you to Amy Azera for writing the theme song for this podcast. And when the sweet little box inevitably gets stuck in your head,

[00:45:38] I hope it reminds you of this wonderful community that's here with you. Thanks to all our guests for sharing these parts of their stories with us, and of course, to you for listening. See you next time!