Andrea's Story - Saving Your Own Life: Inner Child Healing

Andrea grew up in what she calls a "broken home," bounced through twelve different schools and five stepfathers, largely raising herself on the streets of her neighborhood while her mother, in survival mode herself, was often absent. Without any consistent guidance, Andrea would wander into whatever church happened to be nearby and sit through the service alone, starting around age nine, no one ever asking where her parents were.

Religion became something more structured every summer, when her aunt and uncle took her and her brother in and enrolled them in church camp. It was there, around campfires and long hikes, that she first felt something like the presence of God, and began building a relationship with what she describes as "this man in the sky." But that relationship never touched the deeper wound underneath it: she felt fundamentally unworthy of love, and praying to an unseen, unresponsive God only layered a second absent father onto the abandonment she already carried.

That belief followed her into marriage and motherhood, where she built her worth around performance: self-sacrifice, cheerfulness, service to everyone but herself, the verse "a cheerful heart is good medicine" pinned to her identity while she came home each night exhausted, lonely, and quietly begging God to rescue her. It wasn't until she sat down to write, about four years ago, that the mask cracked. What started as an innocent attempt to put her childhood on paper pulled her into what she calls "the cave," a dark, disorienting collapse she tried more than once to climb out of before finally surrendering to it.

As she kept writing, Andrea began to see the deeper belief underneath everything: that her whole life had been an act of self-abandonment dressed up as service, and that being loved unconditionally was never supposed to depend on how well she performed. Reparenting that twelve-year-old version of herself, she says, has meant treating her the way she now treats her own children: with presence instead of pressure, and love with no conditions attached.

That reckoning eventually reached her extended family too, and when she tried to voice what she was working through, most of the people she expected to show up for her went quiet instead. What surprised her was who did show up: strangers, support groups, people with no obligation to her at all. She's since turned that healing into a published book, and closes the conversation with her own definition of unconditional love, which for her comes down to one simple, ongoing question to the people she loves: how can I make you feel loved without conditions?

Connect with Andrea's work here: https://cheydrea.com/book

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:01

Hello and welcome to Unconditioning Love, where I, Lydia, your host, guide you through the profound journey of deconstructing love to rediscover its unconditional essence. Join me as we explore stories of resilience, speaking with individuals from the LGBTQ community, those who have found love post-narcistic relationships, and courageous souls breaking free from high control religions. Together, let's unravel the layers of conditional love and embrace the boundless beauty of love without conditions. Hello and welcome to today's episode. Before I jump into the episode, I just wanted to mention that I am leaving to go on an international trip this weekend, and I'm gonna be gone for a month. So I'll be back in May, and I was hoping to have episodes recorded, but the reality is right now as a mom and a business owner and being pregnant, um, I just was not able to find the time to do that. So um if you haven't listened to all of the episodes, you can use this month to go back in um and listen to the ones that you haven't listened yet. And if you haven't yet reviewed the podcast, this is a way that you can support me, and I really, really encourage you to do this. If you can pause this, go ahead and review the podcast, and then come back. That would just mean so much to me. Thank you to each of you who have done that and who are doing that. Today we have a really special guest on. Her name is Andrea, and she is an acclaimed author, and she is the very first person that I have interviewed so far who has not been a part of the church that I grew up with. So she is in no way affiliated with that church. And I'm really looking forward to diving into her journey. So I'm gonna go ahead and start today's episode. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Hello and welcome to this week's episode of Unconditioning Love. Today we have Andrea on the podcast, and Andrea is from Colorado, currently living in Florida. Andrea, thank you so much for joining us today. Hi, Lydia, thank you. I'm so happy to spend this time with you. Yay, and I can't wait for those who are listening to get to hear from your wisdom. Let's start in to your story at your childhood. So tell us a little bit about your childhood and how worthiness, belonging, and religion played a role in your childhood.

SPEAKER_02 2:27

So I came from a broken home, and so there was no father in the home. And uh I know now that my mom was in survival mode, but um she was absent a majority of the time. So I used to call myself a street rat, and I just ran the streets, so to speak. Um, but there was a lot of chaos, a lot of neglect, there was some abuse, there was a lot of things that went on. Um, I was bullied by peers. I went to 12 different schools. Um and I had five stepdads that last, you know, that were there was a lot of different people coming in and out of our home, strangers that would come and then leave. And so there was just a lot going on. As far as how religion played a part in it and the worthiness, you know, I'm still putting those pieces together, but I was told to go to church, whatever that meant. So being a street rat, I would just go to any church in the neighborhood and I would go alone. And this started at about age nine. Um, there's a really complicated timeline that I'm skipping over, but at age nine, when I didn't have a stepfather at the time, um, and so I would just go into the the neighborhood churches and and go in, sit down. And what's funny to me now is I look back and no one ever questioned me. Nobody ever stopped and said, Where are your parents and what are you doing here? It was interesting. So, but I saw different types of churches. I think I might have gone into some Catholic churches, some Protestants, some Methodist, uh, and they were all uniquely different. And and um, and that's what I did. It wasn't consistent, it was just whenever my mom happened to be um saying, Hey, you need to get to church. It was more like you need to get your ass to church, but and so, but then in the summers, my aunt and uncle would come and get my brother and I, because my aunt told me that if they didn't come and get us, they were worried what would happen to us during the summer when we weren't in school. So they would take us in the summer, and that is when my religious upbringing or or the when religion was really infused in me because they were very strict, and so that's where there was the structure, and we went to church all the time, and um we were required to do all the Bible studies and all the things that people did at church. So I know I haven't touched on the worthiness, but I'm gonna take a pause so you can. Um, I was just trying to give you some context to my childhood.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

Yes. Wow, you are such a strong soul and have been through so much. I am curious to hear what age did you start to really have this idea about God through going to different churches and then, you know, going with your aunt and uncle. Um, when did you really start thinking about God and what did that look like? What was your view on God at that time?

SPEAKER_02 5:41

I think when God really started to get infused into me was when my aunt and uncle dropped us off at church camp. So we went to church camp every summer, and I liked church camp. There was a lot that went on there, and um, there was um campfires every night where we would sing, and that really felt like there was a presence of God, you know, because music and fire in the middle of nowhere can be very transformational, and it felt like there was something lighting up in my soul. We went on hikes at this camp. We were told to go sit alone and do read the Bible, and I would sit out there alone, and it just felt peaceful for me because that was one week out of my chaotic childhood that I actually felt like I was part of something. Uh, that we had skits and um talent nights, and we stayed in cabins with people. And although the kids weren't always so nice, overall, uh, it was my only time during my life, one week out of the summer where I felt like I was part of something and that God was there. So it really that was when God really showed up in my life, and I thought there's a God, and I'm and I had developed a relationship with this man in the sky that was out there looking out for me and protecting me. So it was pretty powerful.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Yeah. And what was your view on how God viewed you? So when it came to your own personal relationship with yourself, how how did you feel about yourself and how God viewed you?

SPEAKER_02 7:26

Yeah, so that kind of goes back to your first question, which is good because I didn't completely answer it, but I I now know after doing a lot of writing that I felt unworthy of love. And I didn't connect the dots to God, but it's the abandonment. So when you're abandoned as a child, however that comes out, I mean, because there's different forms of abandonment, um, you and then you're trying to develop this relationship with God, an invisible being, and they don't show up literally figuratively in any way, um, it sort of just puts more poison on the on the abandonment wound. And so as I went through my life always pleading and begging and praying to this, this God, this man, this absent father, which I didn't even have a father, so now I've got two absent fathers. Uh, and and having that not ever remedy my pain and my wounds and my depression and um my thoughts at not wanting to live anymore and things that went on later on in my life. And so, but I kept trying and trying and developing this relationship with this absent God and um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:54

And I want you to now kind of go in from that place where you were then to where you are now in your perspective of yourself and of your worthiness story now and how you feel about yourself, and share a little bit about this journey, and also I would love for you to share a little bit about when you knew that you were supposed to write um and what that journey looks like as well. So I I for some reason feel like those two are tied together and would love to hear about this.

SPEAKER_02 9:27

Yeah, and this is so much, but so I'm married, I've been married for 30 some years. I have two adult children, and um I felt like I had to prove my worth in my marriage, and so and I learned this. So I started writing about four years ago. I just sat down innocently and was writing about my life, my childhood, and it got ugly really fast. And uh it was scary. I ended up in a really dark place. Um, I call it the cave. It's like you're just outside, you're walking around, I'm I'm typing, writing, and I enter this dark cave, and then I'm stuck in this cave and I'm trying to get out of it, and I can't get out. And so I'm trapped there. And as I continued to write, it just got more uh lonely, dark, scary. Um, and I realized that I had a lot of wounds and trauma from my childhood that I needed to look at. And as I continued to write, I saw that there were so many pieces of it. It wasn't just abandonment, it wasn't just neglect, it wasn't abuse, it wasn't just bullying, it was also the church. And so I had already started deconstructing because I had uh been gone had gone through like three yoga trainings and was a yoga teacher, and I was already learning different ways of thinking and believing, but I hadn't fully deconstructed. And so I just started to really look at that as well. So, fast forward when I finished my poetry book that I wrote, that was when the the worthiness showed up, and I realized that all along I was putting my worth in in my performance as a wife, my performance as a daughter, my performance and people pleasing, and all the things I was doing to prove my worth so that that I wouldn't feel that abandonment and rejection and that fear. And um, and then as I looked at my pages and they started to come together, I realized I was always worthy of love. There was no man in the sky that was gonna come save me. Um, I didn't need to be praying to a man. I even had some anger there. I was like, God is a woman, and I mean there was anger. Uh and so yeah, I hope I'm answering your question somewhat.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yes, you are. Um, I'm curious, like if you could go back in time right now to that version of you. Um, let's say at 12 years old, I'm just gonna go back to 12 years old. What would you tell her now?

SPEAKER_02 12:17

Oh yeah, geez. Um I think I would tell her what I would everything I ever told my daughter, everything I ever told my children, I would reparent her. Um, I don't know that I would tell her anything as much as I would be there for her, and I would just hold her and I would hug her and I would, you know, tell her that she was perfect, just the way she was. And and I would protect her, and um everything you do for your own children that you can even imagine, I would do for her. And so I'm still in the process of reparenting myself, still trying to figure out what that means. But I was an exceptional mom. My kids and I are very close. I very much protected them, which is why I moved away from family. Uh, I'm currently estranged from them, and I so I moved away from family because I I wanted to protect them from everything I ever felt, and so it was like this fear. Uh what would you call it? Not fearless, but um fierce mom, just like I'm gonna take care of these kids. And so that's what I would do for myself if I went back as 12 at 12. I would treat myself the way I treated my kids.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

So beautiful. And there's so many different things I want to talk about there. Um, just that love and really just being there for her, for that version of you, and for anyone else who's currently going through this, whether this looks like religious trauma, whether this looks like some other type of trauma, when we really take that time to go back and take away all of the, oh, you need to do this, you need to do that, all of the, you know, cognitive things and just simply be there for that version of you. And that is where so much healing happens. Um, it's something that I do a lot with my clients and I do with myself as well. Um, and I'm really curious to hear about um as a mom, like when you started to become a mom, how did things shift for you in terms of this path that you were on and you um creating these boundaries for yourself and for your family?

SPEAKER_02 14:32

So I I it was just intuition. It was like the day my son was born, something in me changed, and even my husband said so. He said, You changed. It was like a switch went on. Uh, because when we met, I was this fearless, kind of wild. Some people might even say feral, even though I think that's a little drastic, but um person just willing to do anything and everything. I didn't have a filter. Uh, there was just a lot about me that I don't even remember, another version of myself. Have my son switch goes off, and I'm like this completely different person. And I don't know what it was. It was just um, I will protect this child at all costs. Um, and I will love this child and I will nurture this child, and I will never abandon or reject or dismiss or harm or ignore or anything. I just it was something in me. It was the I think it might have been the wounded child in me that was like, I will protect this, this, this child. And I felt that way about my daughter. And then as life progressed and they got a little bit older, I was working a lot, and there was this intuition, this nudge in me, this voice that I know we all have. And it was it was telling me that I needed to be a full-time present mom. And and so I gathered my family and we moved to Florida. Long story. Uh, but and that's when I really started to focus on what it meant to be a mom, all the details, because you know, as we all know, being a mother is more than just there's so much to it. Um, and so I just poured my heart and soul into them and protected them. And I only knew how to do that by moving away from family because I didn't have the tools, and um, it was sort of a it was like a boundary of space, of I need to space myself out from anything on both sides of our families, uh, because we both came from very different, but really there was always religion on both sides, and I just I was like, I gotta space myself out from all of that and really have the opportunity to to do this myself the way I need to do this, and and that's what happened.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

I just feel so much courage. Like there's so much courage, it's just like pouring through you as I hear your story, as you are talking. Like before we even got into the story, like I would say if I had to sum up your energy in one word, it would be courage. Um, and I really think it's so beautiful because now your kids get to bring this with them as they move forward, like their whole life is so different than yours was. And you have you've given them so much through having the courage to take these steps. And you know, when people are are listening to us talk and they're like, but there's so many steps, there really are a lot of steps, and this is like we're getting to witness like where you are now, this transformation and and you having that place. But it's really just about taking the first step, and that first step can be really hard and really scary. Um, but it's like once you take that first step, then further steps will show themselves, but it's just really about having a little bit of courage to take that first step. Um, and I feel like for me as well, like hearing your story about becoming a mom and about that energy shift, it happened for me too. The weird thing was I feel like it almost happened. Like I believe in energy, and I believe that like that our our baby souls are like with us before before they actually come in. Um, and I like about a year before having my son was when I um, or before I got pregnant with my son is when I left. I like fully took that step of leaving the church, and I also had a very similar experience to feeling that switch. And it's like where before it was harder for me to put these boundaries with family, as soon as I had my baby, it's like, no, I will do anything, like literally anything. Um, and it's just this, it's almost like this mama bear archetype that's just like there with us, helping us to create those boundaries. And it's awesome. I mean, I really feel like being a mom is like one of the biggest up energy upgrades, and it really can help us to take those steps. And when we do it for our kids, we're also doing it for ourselves too. So we're we're giving ourselves what we really needed all along through the modality of holding this space for our children because we know it's what's best for them as well. Um, I want to hear a little bit about when you took the step to move and how that played out with family in terms of um of that journey to to actually doing that, because that's a big step. Um, my husband and I also moved to Paraguay, which was a big you know shift from where our families are. Um, and I want to also hear about now, like where you're at with your kids and the community that you guys have formed and how you would describe a healthy community, like the community that you have chosen around you and what that looks like. So just that journey of you know getting to where you're at right now with the community that you have.

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah, so the decision to move that was uh geez, that was in 2005. So we're talking almost 20 years ago. It's been 20 years. Uh I just I I do remember just, you know, making we made the announcement that we're moving. And um I don't remember the reasons that we said we were moving. Uh it was mostly just a geographical change, you know, a warmer climate was the reason that we used uh for moving, and also my husband getting a different job opportunity somewhere else, you know, because a lot of times when you tell the family what you're doing, you don't tell the whole thing because it doesn't help the situation. Um, but I do remember, to be honest, writing my mom a letter and asking her many times to be a part of our lives. And because I never got a response to the letters, I said, well, we're gonna go ahead and move. Because what I secretly hoped is that family, I had a vision for what family was supposed to look like, and it never came to fruition. So I think together with my husband, it was mostly my decision, but it was like, if we're not gonna have this vision of what family means, let's go ahead and move somewhere else warm and and and do it over. Um, so yeah, that's how that went about. It was very difficult, it was very lonely. It was raising children without any support is one of the most difficult things. I don't know how I survived it. My daughter says when she looks at pictures of me that I always looked so tired. And I was, I was physically and emotionally exhausted. Um, and we took, I took my kids back to Colorado every year, twice a year to visit family because I was still deep down, desperate for something. That I wasn't getting, but still ended up back in Florida, you know, grinding as a mother. And the community was church for a while because I didn't deconstruct in the beginning. I put them in school, homeschool. I homeschooled them. We we did all the um, we got pretty committed to all things, you know, church and the community of church. Uh, but I ended up putting an end to that kind of midway through their lives when my son was in high school. And then that's when the deconstruction started, because I was physically falling apart. And I ended up dragging myself into a yoga studio and ended up with three yoga certifications and started teaching. But that was the physical aspect of it. The the my internal trauma was coming out and manifesting physically, but the deconstruction of of the mind and the mindset and all the things that go along with that didn't really happen until later. And that was more at midlife for me. So I'm a late, a late, late in that process. Uh, and I've been told and I'm learning now that a lot of women my age, because I'm 53, don't usually make that change. Like I kind of it's kind of a miracle that I was able to do that based on the generational gaps, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

It does make sense. Yeah, it's it's a huge, huge shift to make. Um, and at any age, and the older that you are, the bigger a shift it is, because the longer you've been in that environment, the longer you've had those condition conditioning, like the thoughts, um, the longer that you've had been carrying those limiting beliefs that are actually create have created your entire life. And then it's like deconstructing from that, you know, every single year counts when it comes to this. And so the longer you wait, the harder it is for sure. And so I again courage. I'm just like so proud of you. I'm so proud of you for the steps that you have taken um to become even more whole or to step into your wholeness because you're already whole, but it's just like that, you know, releasing the layers that are telling you that you're not, um, and how that has played out for your kids as well. So tell me a little bit about what some of the beliefs were that come in strong, like when you think about your place as a woman in the church, if you will. Um, tell me about how that looked for you when you were really like in it.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Yeah, the deep, deep core beliefs that I unraveled in my writing was that I believed that it was my job to sacrifice myself and abandon myself, basically, but to be self-sacrificing and to give and to serve and to um always make everyone else's lives better and um and to just be like Jesus. And that's what I always was. I was, you know, that was my whole motto in life was to be like Jesus and to just sacrifice and give and serve. And and not only that, but like my my Bible verse that I had on everything was Proverbs 17, 22, which is a cheerful heart is like good medicine. So I did it with cheerfulness and joy, and everybody saw me as this happy, joyful, amazing, giving, serving, loving person. And that's what I was. I made myself be that. But at home behind closed doors, I was exhausted and begging for God to rescue me, and I was lonely and I was scared and I cried all the time. And it was, it was just, and then I'd get myself together and open the door and walk out and be like, la, here I am, and I'm serving and forgive everyone for anything they did or didn't do, and just and I just couldn't do it anymore, and I just fell apart, and that's I fell apart when I started writing. It was like a total collapse inside a cave.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Yeah, and there had to be that collapse in order to recreate. I feel like your story, and and this is like I don't just feel I know, I know that your story resonates with so many other women. Like I'm hearing this, and like I could have said amen to like almost every single thing that you said there. Like, whenever I had my collapsing, like physically speaking, like I mean, I got really, really, really, really um unwell physically. And but that was all just a physical manifestation of what was going on internally, and same thing for me. Like, I, you know, had this like super happy like feeling and like personality. I am I love laughing, laughing, I love laughter, I'm I just am a happy person just in general. But it was coming from this place of like in order to um be good, in order to be worthy, in order for um other people for me to be where I need to be for other people, I have to keep this up. And if I don't, if people actually see what's going on, like I can't even see what's going on, like I can't even know that about my own self, you know. Like I didn't let myself have the time and space to even like think about that. So it's so incredible that you started writing and that you allowed yourself that space. Um, and for you, that was where your healing really started to take a huge turn for the the better, um, and the releasing and the really like stepping in.

SPEAKER_02 27:43

So not until it got bad, not until it got really bad. It was it was bad. Um, and I when and when I was raising my kids, now I look back, I was depressed a lot. And I I went to a doctor once and they gave me some medication and I took myself off of it because I just didn't subscribe to any of that, but I didn't say anything to anyone ever because I was afraid that I'd get my children taken away from me. So just by saying I'm not doing well, you know, I didn't trust the systems to protect me or to help me, I didn't trust anyone. So I just pretended I was fine.

SPEAKER_01 28:22

Wow. And I feel like that is like the pressure that is put on women in the church to be this certain way and also to not show how they're actually feeling. Um, and and this idea of being like Jesus, like because Jesus was perfect, and so we're meant to be perfect, and that is so like it's interesting. Someone recently said, and I love this this thought that perfectionism is the lowest vibration that you could possibly have. So, like when you are in that energy, it's actually it literally is like the lowest because it's impossible, it's an impossible feat. And so if you're striving for perfectionism, then that means that you're always going to be not adding up, not not um measuring up to the you know, the place where you think that you need to be. And so that's just like a very negative energy to be in. And as women, specifically in the church, like every almost every single woman that I've had on the podcast, they've talked about the same thing in their life and having to heal from that. Um, so I definitely think that, and I know that there are some men that will resonate with this as well, specifically for the women, I think that that was something that was really put on us. It was like there were so many different baskets that we were carrying all at the same time. We had, you know, a role to fill at home, we had a role to fill with our husbands, we had a role to fill, you know, at work, we had all of these different roles, and but also we couldn't use our voice, we couldn't share too much, because then you know we would be out of place. And so we just had to like the the service part, like the giving of ourselves of what we actually didn't even have, was that level of um expectation on us, it especially when you're carrying this belief about being perfect, it's it's exhausting.

SPEAKER_02 30:10

Well, and I um I felt that way not just in the church, but I felt that way in the family too, because on both sides of my family, my husband's family and mine, any complaint of anything was not received. It was it there was no safe space to to say I'm not well or I'm struggling with. It was met with everything unhealthy you can imagine, denial, gaslighting, gossip. I mean, you just don't speak of your struggles. Um, and I don't know where that comes from. I mean, religion maybe, uh, family systems, you know, and I I know like it's a societal problem for in in in all cultures, like a healthy family, and that's one of the things I've been trying to foster and nurture in my family, and is that if anyone's not good, none of us are good, so we need to talk about it no matter what it is, uh, and that everybody gets to speak and share, and that we don't abandon each other in our pain.

SPEAKER_01 31:23

Yeah, that vulnerability and that ability to show up authentically as you are in each moment is so so important. And um really, I feel like that sums up a good community, a good family environment. And when I say family, at this point I don't mean like blood, but like the people, the chosen family that you choose, it's like people who you are able to be with, and you can all truly show up as you are, and that is embraced and accepted. And like you said, we are all a part of this ecosystem, we're all so impacted by one another, right? And so when one person, I mean, like one person, especially the mom, is not doing well, then that's going to like it's gonna impact everyone. Um, whether or not they're talking about it, whether or not people even consciously know it is it's gonna have a ripple effect. Um, I'm so proud of you, proud of you for taking that time to to dive into that cave, to go into the cave and to not go out of it. And I think that when when you start to start to kind of go into that, like I know in my own healing journey, and I started to have like terrible nightmares that were like about the past that I was like healing from, like it's very easy to want to just be like, nope, not going back in there. Like, you know, it's that's the easiest thing. Um, we are I tried to get out.

SPEAKER_02 32:50

You did. I did several times. I made attempts to get out of that cave, but I I certain things happened and my body kept breaking down, and I and I got injured, and then I'm back in a chair. And so it was almost like it was almost like something else was forcing me to stay in the cave. It's like I get out, just get out of the cave and bam, I'm right back in. Like I was fighting with myself, and then I just sort of surrendered, um, surrendered to the the torment and the angst, and um I could see that something huge was happening, a metamorphosis, if you will, um, you know, about the third round of wanting to give up or to try to escape. I was like, there's obviously something I need to be doing here, and that's when it got ugly, and that's when the full family estrangement happened. Because as I tried to communicate to family, that I was, you know, I was trying to communicate. Um, and that they all just kind of was like, no, we don't want anything to do with this. And that's when it really got bad because now I I was in grief because I'm like, I'm going through this alone. Um, and my husband was he was there, but he works a lot, and so he he didn't abandon me. We're we're still together, and I've thanked him for not leaving because some people a lot of people leave, and a lot of my girlfriends showed up for me. People people here's the thing: a lot of people that I thought should be there for me weren't. The people I love the most weren't. The people I was giving all of my love to and my time and my energy weren't there for me. The people that I least expected to be there for me, strangers, support groups, people, um, they were there for me. And it that was an eye-opener that, you know, I really need to make sure that I'm very conscious about who I give my time and my energy to out outside of the healing, that healing journey, and to to choose people carefully, and and you know, that's a whole nother thing. Sorry.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

I love the topic of the relationships because I mean everything is on relationships, everything. And so, and like what to your point, I feel like it speaks so loudly to so many people who have gone through or are going through this process of leaving the church because when you're going through that, oftentimes when you start realizing, because I'm saying the church, I mean like a high control religion or an environment where there were not boundaries, there were not healthy boundaries, and all of a sudden you're putting these up, you're saying, This is what I need. And for the first time, you actually have a voice, you have access to your voice. And what happens when you go into an environment, your your previous environment where you didn't have a voice before is a bunch of these people over here in that environment also don't have a voice. And so when you come in, they're like, wait, what are you doing? Like you're speaking out, like you shouldn't be doing this, and they try to turn your voice off, and that's where it's a really hard thing, and it naturally happens where their boundaries set, and sometimes, oftentimes, that means relationships are closed. Um, and one thing that has just brought me a lot of joy is knowing I don't want to say joy because it doesn't bring me joy, but I should say it um is a little bit of something like a solace in the grief of going through the loss of these relationships, is knowing that if these relationships are not conducive to my happiness, well-being, growth in the future, then what this means is I'm gonna have more space in my life to bring in relationships that are. And so, and just knowing, like even if that's not happened yet, you know, in that process, in that grieving process, just keeping that silver lining for those of you who are going through this right now, because I do feel like there are gonna be some that are listening to this right now who are in the process of, and it's really traumatic going through that. Um, and both of us have gone through that, and it's it's super traumatic. It's like your entire community, your entire family system, it's shifted all the and it happens for some of us, it happened in a moment, literally in a moment. And it's like trying to describe this to someone who hasn't gone through it is really hard because it's almost like going through like a hundred plus funerals all at the same time, because it's all of these relationships that are all closing at the very same time, and even if you have some sort of communication with them beyond this point, it's gonna look totally different. There's like a wall there, and it's or I don't even think about it as a wall, I think about it as a big gulf. That's how I see it. It's there's a big gulf there keeping you from that person.

SPEAKER_02 37:39

Um, but they're you're shouting and they can't hear you because they're just so far away from who you are and what you're trying to say, and it's like, or I feel like it also it's like talking a different language. It's like you're trying to explain yourself and help the people that are supposed to love you understand you, and they can't see you, they can't hear you, they can't understand you, and they just think there's something so wrong with you. And you're like, no, this is what's so right with me, is that I'm I'm changing. I'm I'm you know, and I never would have used this term before, but I'm turning into a butterfly, you know. I never was really into butterflies before, but now I'm like, I think I like the butterfly. I think I like the caterpillar soup. I think, you know, because now I I'm like, I I swam in that caterpillar soup for three, four years.

SPEAKER_01 38:34

Um yeah, so beautiful. Um, and so now that you're on this side of things, for someone who is currently going through it, what would you say to them?

SPEAKER_02 38:51

Oh, so many things. I I would say um so many things. I would I would want to sit with them, just like I said, my smaller self. I would just want to be with them. But you know, I had to hold myself. I had to be there for myself. Um, even though I said people did were there for me, they weren't there for me through through it. It was like I was in the cave alone, but there were people there. They were outside of the cave just waiting, so to speak. Nobody's gonna rescue you. But on the other side of that is is a lot of clarity, a lot of um pain that just disappears. Um, the clarity is huge. Self-compassion. Oh my gosh, bring self-compassion with you so that every time you start to question uh or deny yourself or attack yourself or anything that's dark or lonely or negative happens, just um enlist self-compassion like you would for your own child. I mean, if your child's hurting, are you not going to show compassion for your child, right? So treat yourself with such love and softness and grace and compassion. And then, you know, you just have to coach yourself through it. I did have to do a lot of other things. I had to distract myself with art, which is, you know, part of what made, you know, some of my art made it in my book. I had to do lots of exercise. I stayed doing yoga. I made sure I was eating healthy, I was doing the things that would support my physical body while my emotional self was collapsing and breaking down. So that's what I would say. Um, and yeah, I mean, if you get to a place that's really hard, you know, ask for help when you don't want to, and just say, I'm call someone that you trust and say, I'm having a really bad day. Can you just come and just sit with me? And and sometimes that it's because it's like you're riding the waves, it's like you're in an ocean and you know, sometimes it's calm and you're treading water, but then this huge storm comes and you're drowning, and then again and again and again, and you're just getting beaten down, and and then you know, you sink to the bottom of the ocean and and you're just like, I'm gonna die down here, but then you come back up for air, and you're just it's just this total, you know, that's what it feels felt like to me. It's like when is this gonna end? And and you have to save your own life. You have to, you have to get a life. Um I think I used this once before, where you know, throw yourself a life jacket or a life raft and grab onto it, whatever that means. And then because there's huge, beautiful uh lessons on the other side of that storm, that that you can never go back to the old version of yourself. It's just impossible. And that's nice. I feel peaceful, I feel a lot of different things now. I don't my depression doesn't come in waves anymore. I'm stronger, I'm more resilient, and I know there's going to be more storms in life. And I think that's why when we see these old people that are in their 80s and 90s and they look so amazing and they have all this wisdom, and it's like they know how to navigate the storms. They didn't have one storm in their life, they probably had 10 storms or 20 storms, and and they learned how to navigate those storms, and they didn't just wake up one day and they were old. There was a lot that went on in that process.

SPEAKER_01 42:33

Thank you. Um, all of that, all of that advice was so good. You know, when you were talking, I had this analogy of you know, this being like a death and like the cave kind of symbolizing death. Um, because we go through different deaths in this lifetime and a death of what we knew in order to become who we're we're becoming. And so going through this, going through death, you do that alone. You can't you can't bring anyone with you when you're in that. But I loved that the analogy that you gave of the cave, of the people standing outside the cave, and just that like belonging and that community that you're going to build. Like, you know, when you are born, when you have new life and you enter the world, there's this belonging there. There are, you know, people around, surrounding, like welcoming you into the world. And I really feel like that's what, in my experience, that's what this has been like of you know, dying to what I knew, and then after getting through that experience on the other side of it, creating this beautiful community and having belonging with people who actually embrace authenticity and who embrace vulnerability and who allow me to be my truest, most authentic self, um, and and that I can be, you know, that I can also hold the same space for them. And so that's what you have to look forward to because you get to choose. That's such a difference in when we're in an environment where we didn't choose the people around us, but we were just, you know, maybe we were born into that, you know, um group of people. And so for so long we didn't choose at all, and we didn't even know that we had a choice. But in going through this and having that choice of getting to choose who you, you know, surround yourself with, this is so empowering. And I just love that that analogy that just came to me of this death and this new life and this, you know, family, so to speak, waiting for us on the other side.

SPEAKER_02 44:40

I do not have the fear that I used to have. Um, and I've been told many times in every age of my life, whether I was in my 20s, 30s, 40s, that I'm very brave and very courageous. And I never really saw that in myself. But I I now see like I made a lot of decisions that went against what people told me I should be doing, even you know, from moving and all the things I did, leaving religion, um, and and things like that. Even publishing my book was just like uh that was so scary. Uh, but it was also so brave. Um, yeah, and I don't even know what my point was that I was gonna make. So it was a point. Well, I definitely feel like the fear. Oh yeah. Post-religion, yes. Like I I had a support group, and that that helped me really catapult that healing process. And uh I found a group of people that have all deconstructed thousands of people, tens of thousands of people, ex-pastors, you know, really smart intellectual people that have studied the Bible upside down to Sunday or whatever. And and that was really, really helpful. And so I don't have that fear anymore of like, oh, if I make this decision, am I gonna, is God going to do this or am I gonna go to hell or any of those things? And it's like, you know, people are asking, what are you gonna do on Easter? I'm gonna go play pickleball and and eat a eat a burger or whatever. I don't know, but it I doesn't cross my mind anymore that, oh, should I be doing something else? And that's a nice feeling. And and uh that just started happening a few years back, you know, like three or four years ago, where I was I was certain of it. I wasn't like, you know, you go from total guilt to back, you're like juggling guilt to now. I'm like, there's no guilt, there's nothing to feel guilty about.

SPEAKER_01 46:46

Yeah. And so it for those listening, just understanding it takes time and also don't give up because like wherever you're at in the feeling of the guilt, yeah, like there's there's the other side of it, like where you are. And I think I don't know that I'm like I'm definitely not completely free of it yet. Um I I've been out for five years, um, but I am very much like in a much, much, much better place with it than I was. And every, I mean, honestly, every year I can look back and I can be like, wow, I'm doing this and I don't feel guilty. That's amazing, you know. So it takes time. And I think for some people, it's like they they see people who don't have it at all, and they're like, oh, I could never be there, or the opposite of like when you're in it, it just feels like you're always gonna be in it. But that's not the case. Just keep going forward, and little by little you can deconstruct from this and release it entirely.

SPEAKER_02 47:44

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 47:47

So I want to ask you one last question. Today has been beautiful, and I've just really enjoyed our conversation together. And I I hate that we're already out of time. Um, but the last question I'd like to leave on is how would you describe unconditional love now? Okay.

SPEAKER_02 48:08

Umconditional love is not perfect, it's in but it's intentionally unselfish. It is non-judgmental, it is a radical acceptance and embracing of another human being. I'm reading something that I wrote. Um, the energy of authentic love transforms a person in real time. It means I will not reject or abandon you. It means that we love someone with care, intention, reciprocity, and presence. It means we love someone not only when they are at their very best, but also when they are struggling in life. It means that love should not be a condition that is put on us based on how we perform or conform. It is not competitive or jealous. When we can truly love ourselves unconditionally, it makes it possible to love others this way. Loving ourselves unconditionally is one of the most difficult things to do. So I just kind of put that together this morning because I was really thinking about that, and I'm just like, that is a good question that we all have to answer for ourselves and then express that to the people that we love. Like, how can I love you unconditionally? Because if I asked you that, Lydia, your idea would be different than mine, but I would want to know how you feel about it because that's what matters is what makes you feel unconditionally loved, and how I can give that to you is is the act of unconditional love to me.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Yes, oh, I love that because we're all so different and unique and individual, um, and collectively, like we just vibe better, we feel better when we are loving others in an unconditional way rather than putting these judgments or these ideas onto them that should never be there in the first place. Um, and I love that about going to each individual relationship, and you know, and that's a way that you can cultivate deeper um meaning, belonging, um, connection with that person is by really showing up for them and saying, How can I make you feel unconditionally loved? Thank you for that. Yeah. So, what's your answer?

SPEAKER_02 50:25

Am I allowed to ask you a question that question before we go?

SPEAKER_01 50:29

Yeah, you can't, you can. Um, I haven't really thought of it today. Um, but just like on the fly, unconditionally loving someone, is loving them without our own expectations of how they should be. Um, loving them for like literally showing up for them, listening to them, just being there, taking all of our own ideas of how life is and putting those like aside because we all have our view, we all have a lens at which we look at life. And the lens that we that I look at life with is based on the experiences that I've been through, the information that I've received and actually consumed. Um, and so it's gonna look very different from the way that you look at life. And so I feel like unconditionally loving someone else is when I'm able to take all of that off of myself, like all of these lenses at which I see life, whenever I'm talking with you and actually listening, showing up for you and and really being there for you and um supporting, loving you without any bias, without any, like I said, expectation, um, and just being there. So that's how I would describe it. Nice. Thank you. You're welcome. Thank you so much, Andrea, for coming on the podcast today. It's been really lovely.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

Yeah, I'm so glad we met. I just adore you. I think you're just an angel. Oh, you're so sweet.

SPEAKER_01 51:59

I adore you too. Thank you so much. You have been listening to Unconditioning Love. I am Lydia, your host, and I ask that if you gained something from this podcast, even if it was just to help you to think a little bit more deeply about a concept, I ask that you would go onto iTunes and review this podcast. It's super, super helpful, guys, whenever you rate or review the podcast. Um, and another way that you can give back is through sharing this podcast. Share it with a friend, share it with someone who would also benefit from listening. You can also share it on your Instagram stories, and you can tag me at kini. I'll see you next week.