One year ago, Monica Welty shared her story with TDP listeners on the pod – see Ep.29 Grief & Gratitude – and now she’s back for another heart-to-heart about moving on after loss. Candice opens the episode with a commentary on spiritual bypassing, and then Monica joins her to share recent insights she’s been having in her own process of cult recovery. Monica spent a decade training at ‘the Org’ in addition to other new age wellness circles, all of which emphasize radical body awareness, the law of attraction, and magical thinking. She describes how her grief was compounded by new age indoctrination when she tragically lost her newborn son, her fertility, and her marriage; and how despite the initial benefits, her new age worldview came crashing down. Monica also opens up about how childhood conditioning combined with a culturally-absorbed pressure to spiritually bypass contributed to denial surrounding her husband’s ongoing infidelities, and Candice chimes in with her own personal reckoning with cult of one relational dynamics. Candice shares how she has restored agency when it comes to trusting her instincts on the other side of her culty experiences; and then together she and Monica discuss the dangers of the new age there-are-no-victims mindset, how it’s shaped by privilege, and why it’s so important to seek out spaces where we can show up authentically. This conversation a two-parter; the second half rolls out over on Patreon later this week when Monica & Candice pick up where they left of with a discussion on what it’s like to find meaning on the other side of new age disillusionment.
April 4, 2023
Referenced In This Episode:
- Spiritual Bypassing – Robert Augustus Masters
- Tone Policing & Privilege – Everyday Feminism
- Bonus Episode on Patreon – drops Friday, April 7th
