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The Live Bookstore Interview: You Lied To Me About God with Dr. Jamie Marich · The Trauma Therapist

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: Jamie. Welcome.
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: Great to talk to you guy, Always great to talk
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: to you.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: All right, here we go, Yeah.
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: All right. Look what I'd like to do is read
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: a bit of kind of snippet up your bile and
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: then jump into your book. Sound good, okay, our folks,
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: so welcome to the Live Bookstore Interviews. Super excited to
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: have Jamie Marriage here, doctor Jamie Marriage. So as many
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: of you I'm sure know, Jamie speaks internationally on emdr therapy, trauma, addiction, dissociation,
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  Speaker 1: expressive arts, yoga, and mind fulish and she runs a
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: private practice an online training network in her home base
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  Speaker 1: of Akron, Ohio. She's written numerous books, notably Trauma and
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: the Twelve Steps and Inclusive Guides Recovery, also Dissociation Made Simple.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: In her new book, which we're gonna be talking about today,
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: is titled You Like to Me About God. It's set
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: to come out. We's already out, correct, it's already out. Now.
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: I want to just read a snippet of a review
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: of Kirkus review Kirkus says it's an intimate and important
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  Speaker 1: memoir of deconstructing and reconstructing faith after abuse, a spiritual
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: memoir that does not shy away from abuse, queerness, or
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  Speaker 1: the multifaceted character of God. Jamie, Welcome. Every time I
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: talk to you, I'm like amazed at everything you're doing,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: the breadth of you're doing anyway, great to see you,
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Thank you great. So let's dive in here why this book.
• 1:52
  Speaker 4: This book is the why behind so much of my
• 1:55
  Speaker 4: work and a lot of my other books like Dissociation
• 1:58
  Speaker 4: Made Simple, Trauma and The Twelve Steps. I'm very candid
• 2:01
  Speaker 4: about the fact that I'm a person in long term recovery,
• 2:03
  Speaker 4: that my personal experience with trauma, trauma healing is what
• 2:07
  Speaker 4: got me into this field.
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  Speaker 2: It's what drives me to do this work.
• 2:10
  Speaker 4: And so even though I've disclosed that, in this book,
• 2:13
  Speaker 4: you're going to get the deep dive into what made
• 2:17
  Speaker 4: my brain adapt the way it did and why the
• 2:21
  Speaker 4: struggles came about. So that's one reason, because I feel
• 2:25
  Speaker 4: established enough in my career now where I can get
• 2:27
  Speaker 4: even more personal in my writing. But the other reason
• 2:31
  Speaker 4: why is, and I'm going to be candid here, I
• 2:34
  Speaker 4: know some listeners may not like this. I have been
• 2:37
  Speaker 4: very concerned about the impact of extreme Christian nationalism in
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  Speaker 4: the United States. I think it is something that a
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  Speaker 4: lot of us see in our practices, especially for clients
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  Speaker 4: who are queer.
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  Speaker 2: And because of the way I.
• 2:50
  Speaker 4: Grew up, especially in nationalistic evanthelicalism in the eighties, and
• 2:56
  Speaker 4: then having another parent who was Catholic and I had
• 2:59
  Speaker 4: some time working for the Catholic Church, I saw the
• 3:02
  Speaker 4: impact of high demand religion. I was impacted by high
• 3:06
  Speaker 4: demand religion. And these are things that we as professionals
• 3:12
  Speaker 4: must and so I felt, now is the time to
• 3:18
  Speaker 4: get honest.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: Help me with some terminology. High demand religion. What is that?
• 3:23
  Speaker 4: Yeah, high demand religion is a term that's been proposed
• 3:27
  Speaker 4: and if as an alternative to the word cult, because yeah, right, yeah,
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  Speaker 4: cult is an interesting word because you can go right
• 3:36
  Speaker 4: now to the International Cultic Studies Association look up fourteen
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  Speaker 4: characteristics of a cult.
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  Speaker 2: And a lot of us who grew.
• 3:44
  Speaker 4: Up in what we consider more mainstream churches definitely experience
• 3:49
  Speaker 4: a lot of those qualities of a cult. Yet our
• 3:51
  Speaker 4: experience would not be something that would end up on
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  Speaker 4: a Netflix documentary necessarily. And you know, language is funny
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  Speaker 4: because I always say in the Trauma Professions, the key
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  Speaker 4: to trauma informing anything is language. And so some people
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  Speaker 4: may say, well, my experience in religion was cultish, but
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  Speaker 4: I wouldn't say I was in a cult, And so
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  Speaker 4: I think it's just another term that may rest better
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: with some people, that may better describe their experiences that
• 4:16
  Speaker 4: to say this church I went to it wasn't officially
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  Speaker 4: a cult, yet they operated like one in a lot
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  Speaker 4: of ways, and they asked a lot of me. They
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  Speaker 4: exerted a lot of control over my life. The demands
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  Speaker 4: were high.
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: What how did your relationship to religion, to God change
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  Speaker 1: as you were young? As you were a young kid.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, so my parents were both Roman Catholic when I
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  Speaker 4: got married, and so religion did not seem like a
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  Speaker 4: big deal in the first few years of my life,
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  Speaker 4: at least where I have conscious memory. Some of my
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  Speaker 4: earliest memories are going to Catholic church and my parents
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  Speaker 4: participating in the choir. But then where religion became the
• 5:03
  Speaker 4: central focus of my life. When I was about five
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  Speaker 4: years old, my father converted to a Pentecostal evangelical group
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  Speaker 4: that was already pretty swept up. And even if the
• 5:14
  Speaker 4: group themselves wasn't a swept up, my dad definitely went
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  Speaker 4: into the Christian nationalism rhetoric pretty quickly in the late eighties,
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  Speaker 4: and part of the tone and tenor of the evangelical
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  Speaker 4: group he belonged to was a belief that Catholics weren't
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  Speaker 4: really because I think a lot of people outside of
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  Speaker 4: Christianity think, oh, Catholics, Protestants, Evangelicals, they're all the same.
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  Speaker 4: On one hand, it's all under the umbrella of Christianity
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  Speaker 4: and worship of Jesus, but there can be a lot
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  Speaker 4: of infighting about you're not a real Christian, you're not
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  Speaker 4: a real Christian. So at the age of five, I
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  Speaker 4: was already hearing things like, your mother's going to hell,
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  Speaker 4: your grandparents aren't going to make it unless they convert
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  Speaker 4: to my way of Christianity. So I have vivid memories
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  Speaker 4: of that time and my father, who had some issues
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  Speaker 4: that are show up in other parts of my story,
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  Speaker 4: But the religion just seemed to bring it all out
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  Speaker 4: in a way that, you know, I later learned met
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  Speaker 4: the definition of spiritual abuse.
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  Speaker 1: So what does this look like as you're going through
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  Speaker 1: adolescent or even precubescents, How is this impacting you?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, So a lot of kids who grew up evangelical
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  Speaker 4: in the nineties were exupposed to this thing we call
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  Speaker 4: purity culture. It was a really big movement about you
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  Speaker 4: have to save yourself for marriage, and in fairness, a
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  Speaker 4: lot of Catholics would officially propose that as well, that
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  Speaker 4: the only valid sexual activity is in the state of marriage.
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  Speaker 4: But here it was a lot of demonizing us for
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  Speaker 4: even having normal sexual urges and desires in our body
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: as teenagers. And a story that I tell in the
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  Speaker 4: memoir is the first boy I ever really loved in
• 6:59
  Speaker 4: high school. Looking back on it now, the experimentation we
• 7:04
  Speaker 4: engaged in the love we've shared for each other was
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  Speaker 4: completely appropriate for adolescent and relationships and at knowing that
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  Speaker 4: what I know now as a professional. But one of
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  Speaker 4: the reasons I got so scared by it and so
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: shut down by it was that, you know, he's a predator,
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  Speaker 4: he's doing this, he's doing that, and knowing him because
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  Speaker 4: I know, I'm an adulthood now, farthest thing from a predator,
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  Speaker 4: like farthest from a predator. But it's just a lot
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  Speaker 4: of messaging that your body is bad, your body cannot
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  Speaker 4: be trusted, your body will lead you astray. So I
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  Speaker 4: got that really first in the Evangelical church with that intensity.
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  Speaker 4: But I got it on the Catholic side as well,
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: because I went to Catholic school, and I remember in
• 7:50
  Speaker 4: the eighth grade there was a lot of this messaging
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  Speaker 4: that even light or heavy petting should be avoided because
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  Speaker 4: it'll put you occasion of sin. And I write in
• 7:59
  Speaker 4: the memoir, are we dogs if we're using that kind
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  Speaker 4: of language?
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  Speaker 2: And there wasn't, you know, comprehensive sex education at all.
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  Speaker 4: It was very much kind of sex according to certain
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  Speaker 4: narrow interpretations of the Bible. So that's a developmental impact,
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  Speaker 4: just as for example.
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: What does it take? What did it take to get
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  Speaker 1: to the point where you're like, I need to write
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  Speaker 1: this book.
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  Speaker 4: I know I've been needing to write it for about
• 8:31
  Speaker 4: ten years, honestly, because there are a lot of memoirs
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  Speaker 4: on the market about escaping high demand Christianity getting out
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  Speaker 4: of high demand Christianity. So in a way, I don't
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  Speaker 4: think my story is that unique, except that I got
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  Speaker 4: it on both sides of are two different sides of
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  Speaker 4: the Christian debate. I got it from Catholicism. I got
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  Speaker 4: it from the Evandelical side. And even though the two
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  Speaker 4: churches can't stand each other in general and debate each
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: other about the validity of their Christianity. They still hate
• 9:05
  Speaker 4: a lot of the same things in common, like sexual
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  Speaker 4: exploration that's healthy, definitely queerness. So as a kid, my
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  Speaker 4: first any kind of experimental activity was girls and that
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  Speaker 4: was definitely in the category of sin and shunworthy behavior
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  Speaker 4: neglecting the rights of women, you know, over anything else.
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  Speaker 4: I don't know how detailed you want to get in
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  Speaker 4: the interview, but there were just a lot of common
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  Speaker 4: things that both churches hated. So I wanted to write
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  Speaker 4: the book to share my perspective on yeah, and then
• 9:44
  Speaker 4: what it was like trying to navigate to religions at
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  Speaker 4: the same time that looked similar to on the surface,
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  Speaker 4: but really had a lot of differences. And I was
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  Speaker 4: pitted in this position as somebody who had a.
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: Referee my parents' battles. So there's a lot.
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  Speaker 4: In there that I think can be helpful for trauma
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  Speaker 4: therapists who want to know more about spiritual abuse and
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  Speaker 4: religious trauma.
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  Speaker 1: In terms of your identity, it feels like from the outside,
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  Speaker 1: you're trying to navigate this landmine. How you how, what
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  Speaker 1: did this do? What did that do to your identity?
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  Speaker 4: It has definitely impacted the way I have been able
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  Speaker 4: to function, or I should say struggle with functioning in
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  Speaker 4: any kind of romantic relationship after leaving my parents' house,
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  Speaker 4: because I grew up in this container of a lot
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  Speaker 4: of mixed messaging. I grew up and this is a
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  Speaker 4: message that both churches did have in common, though, with
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  Speaker 4: this idea that I have to be married and have
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  Speaker 4: children and have a family in order to be seen
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  Speaker 4: as valid by both the church and society. And so
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  Speaker 4: even with a lot of the rhetoric that came up
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  Speaker 4: during the election about childless cat ladies and needing to
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  Speaker 4: birth your own biological children, none of that surprised me
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  Speaker 4: because that's a lot of messaging I got, both implicitly
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  Speaker 4: and explicitly in both churches. So I have definitely struggled
• 11:15
  Speaker 4: in relationships. I have been married and divorced twice. And
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  Speaker 4: I unpack some of the reasons why in the memoir
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  Speaker 4: and how some of the lack of any kind of
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  Speaker 4: healthy modeling for how someone like me could be in
• 11:31
  Speaker 4: a relationship growing up is a huge reason. And what
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  Speaker 4: I mean by somebody like me is somebody who is
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  Speaker 4: very feminist at her soul, someone who is queer, someone
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  Speaker 4: who has a polyamorous heart and somebody and you know
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  Speaker 4: this about me, guy. We don't like to stay in
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  Speaker 4: boxes very well. We're even professionally seeing ourselves as somebody's
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  Speaker 4: trained by rules and regulations. Not to say like ethics
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  Speaker 4: aren't important and boundaries important, but we don't like to
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  Speaker 4: be put in the box. And for us, the church
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  Speaker 4: was the first box.
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  Speaker 1: One of the things you stated earlier was this struggle
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: or process of sharing more about yourself professionally. Talk to
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  Speaker 1: us about that that struggle, because I find that not
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  Speaker 1: only fascinating but really inspiring for myself.
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  Speaker 4: Well, I mean a lot of us as professionals are
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  Speaker 4: taught in graduate school to either keep the blank slate
• 12:32
  Speaker 4: or don't talk about your much. And to be clear, yes,
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  Speaker 4: there are good ethics and boundaries for us to adhere
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  Speaker 4: to around that, like when you're with a client, you
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  Speaker 4: never want to make it all about you, and I
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  Speaker 4: definitely follow guidelines about self disclosure, should have a good.
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  Speaker 2: Reason, et cetera. But I think where I get really.
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  Speaker 4: Concerned is in our professional circles at conferences in professional organizations.
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  Speaker 4: I've just been around so many folks where it's this
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  Speaker 4: thing like we just zip it up. And I think
• 13:05
  Speaker 4: our gut that most of us get into this field
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  Speaker 4: because we've had our own experience with trauma. There's there's
• 13:12
  Speaker 4: a piece of literature suggesting that up to forty eight
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  Speaker 4: percent of active psychologists have an active mental health diagnosic
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  Speaker 4: with mental health symptoms, and I think those numbers are
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  Speaker 4: probably lowball, as they often aren't research. So I have
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  Speaker 4: just felt I've always felt like a bit of a
• 13:31
  Speaker 4: misfit in the clinical professions, even in professional organizations that
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  Speaker 4: I belong to that I really like, because I have
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  Speaker 4: this sense that we can hide behind technique and research
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  Speaker 4: and numbers and academic politeness and not really get to
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  Speaker 4: what's important, which is being vulnerable with each other, because
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: it's often not safe in professional circles to be vulnerable
• 13:53
  Speaker 4: with each other.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's definitely one of the things that I've
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: discovered during the interviews I've been doing on the podcast.
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: Without a doubt, I think those numbers are definitely low.
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: I mean, and there's nothing wrong with that. We're human beings, right,
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  Speaker 1: we all have our issues and struggles, and to talk
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  Speaker 1: about that, to share that in a profession or in
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: a forum where you're the one who's looked upon to
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: have answers gets very tricky. It's very tricky. I just
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: want to remind everyone, speaking of doctor Jimmie Marritge, the
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: book is you like to Me about God? So? Who
• 14:37
  Speaker 1: is this book for?
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  Speaker 4: This is probably the most widest audience book I've written
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  Speaker 4: in that it can be just picked up as a
• 14:46
  Speaker 4: memoir for people who like memoir. So I think anybody
• 14:52
  Speaker 4: who likes a good memoir could pick it up. I
• 14:54
  Speaker 4: think it'd be most appealing to people who've had I
• 14:58
  Speaker 4: demand religion or trying to sort out spiritual abuse religious trauma.
• 15:02
  Speaker 4: Yet for my professionals from the field in which I come,
• 15:06
  Speaker 4: I think it's for you too, especially if you're wanting
• 15:08
  Speaker 4: to learn more about spiritual abuse, religious trauma cults, because
• 15:13
  Speaker 4: I think when we did the main podcast interview, something
• 15:15
  Speaker 4: I said was when I first got into this field
• 15:18
  Speaker 4: two thousand and three, two thousand and four, this was
• 15:20
  Speaker 4: hardly being talked about spiritual abuse religious trauma. There was
• 15:24
  Speaker 4: some good cult literature that was the first thing I
• 15:26
  Speaker 4: ever found, And I remember twenty up to about ten
• 15:30
  Speaker 4: years ago, it felt like I was the only one
• 15:32
  Speaker 4: really talking about this in some of the trainings I
• 15:34
  Speaker 4: did on trauma. So I think there's been a burgeoning
• 15:37
  Speaker 4: of interest. One learned from doctor yan Yilalich, who's a
• 15:42
  Speaker 4: cult specialist who I've now done some work with, is
• 15:46
  Speaker 4: the pandemic really escalated. A lot of online cults and
• 15:51
  Speaker 4: new aid spiritual groups and therapists are working with people
• 15:55
  Speaker 4: who've been impacted by those, And I just think there's
• 15:58
  Speaker 4: a need, in a hunger for more training in this area,
• 16:02
  Speaker 4: and there's training to be had, for sure. Yet I
• 16:06
  Speaker 4: think connecting with a personal story, perhaps of somebody who
• 16:10
  Speaker 4: you respect as a trauma teacher, might be a way
• 16:13
  Speaker 4: that you continue or further your gathering of information about
• 16:19
  Speaker 4: the impact of spiritual abuse and religious trauma on people.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: Were there ways in which the writing of this and
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: exploration of your experience this has helped you as professionally
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: or personally?
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: It was I don't even know here.
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  Speaker 4: I am the writer, and I don't have words to
• 16:42
  Speaker 4: put into focus just how therapeutic it was for me,
• 16:45
  Speaker 4: not only to write this, I then did the audiobook
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: recording of it myself, and so to read the words
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  Speaker 4: aloud in some cases form the words allowed really was
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: a form of exposure therapy.
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  Speaker 2: For me. As I wrote the book, I also.
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: Engaged in a lot of expressive arts practices as I
• 17:06
  Speaker 4: was writing. I wrote some songs that go along with
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: the book, and those are out now on wherever you
• 17:12
  Speaker 4: stream music. You can also search You lied to me
• 17:14
  Speaker 4: about God. It was just a very needed thing, and
• 17:20
  Speaker 4: I shared this. I think in the introduction that this
• 17:23
  Speaker 4: was one of the easiest things I had to write
• 17:25
  Speaker 4: and also one of the hardest. I mean what made
• 17:28
  Speaker 4: it easy was this has just been needing.
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: To come out of me in this way.
• 17:32
  Speaker 4: M h hard was doing some of the work around.
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  Speaker 2: This is going to make a lot of people.
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  Speaker 4: Mad, both people I know and people who in the
• 17:42
  Speaker 4: professions look at me and think, either oh I share
• 17:44
  Speaker 4: too much, or she's too liberal, she's to this, she's
• 17:47
  Speaker 4: to that.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: So well, how do you how do you deal with that?
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: I mean you put yourself out there, which again to me,
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: I find so inspiring. Do you have to deal with
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: that or was that just who you are? And is
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: this something you have to contend with?
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 18:06
  Speaker 4: I mean most things that have been said about me
• 18:09
  Speaker 4: by other professionals have gotten to me through other channels,
• 18:13
  Speaker 4: and I've had a couple of people say things to
• 18:14
  Speaker 4: me directly that oh, you share too much, or it's
• 18:20
  Speaker 4: not enough to just share your own story, we have
• 18:22
  Speaker 4: to be doing more research, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah,
• 18:26
  Speaker 4: I've dealt with some of that, but I also have
• 18:31
  Speaker 4: made a decision that if anybody is going to chide
• 18:36
  Speaker 4: me about being too and I'm just talking in the
• 18:38
  Speaker 4: professions here, I really think it says more about them
• 18:42
  Speaker 4: than about me. And it's how I felt when my
• 18:46
  Speaker 4: ex husband, which I read about in the book, tried
• 18:48
  Speaker 4: to use my mental health struggles against me, And when
• 18:51
  Speaker 4: I talked about it with my.
• 18:53
  Speaker 2: Own brilliant trauma therapist.
• 18:55
  Speaker 4: She said, this says more about him that somebody would
• 18:58
  Speaker 4: try to or not the struggles and the consequences, but
• 19:03
  Speaker 4: just being out and candid about it. So I take
• 19:07
  Speaker 4: a lot of that with a grain of salt. I mean,
• 19:08
  Speaker 4: I think though, with this what made that this even
• 19:12
  Speaker 4: harder is my immediate family is all still very religious,
• 19:18
  Speaker 4: all still very conservative. I have members of my extended
• 19:22
  Speaker 4: family who are definitely not, especially my cousins to whom
• 19:25
  Speaker 4: I dedicate the book, and they have been remarkably supportive
• 19:29
  Speaker 4: through this process. And I have a lot of people
• 19:32
  Speaker 4: in my family of choice. As I talk about in
• 19:35
  Speaker 4: the book, it's a very important construct to queer folks
• 19:38
  Speaker 4: who have been very supportive. But yeah, there's a lot
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: of people who don't like when you tell the truth,
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: especially publicly, and so I, yeah, I've had to deal
• 19:52
  Speaker 4: with a little bit of fall out there, but I
• 19:55
  Speaker 4: also knew it had to be done way that.
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: You know, when you look at the therapy relationship, when
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: you have a therapist who is able to be present
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: and authentic, and you know, we understand how that can
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: impact a client, you know, especially someone who's experienced trauma.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: My feeling is that the way you are and the
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: way you present yourself and who you are and your
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: openness really allows the profession to, I think, take another
• 20:33
  Speaker 1: step towards openness and authenticity. I think it's so neat.
• 20:41
  Speaker 1: I think you and I said this to you before,
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: I see you as kind of a guiding light for
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  Speaker 1: a lot of people in the profession to stand up
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: and understand the power of being who we are. It's
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: not easy to do. Yeah, yeah, you know. So I
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: just want to applaud you and really, and I'm not
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: saying that just to blow smoke, but I really think
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: it's very powerful how you're moving through your life and
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: your world. I think we need to look at you
• 21:19
  Speaker 1: and think, yes, you know, I can share authentically and
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: yes ethically with boundaries of course, but we need that,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: We need that.
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: And I think especially now, we need that. Yeah, you
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  Speaker 4: know something. I saw this float around, but it really
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: struck me years ago that when you are a person
• 21:44
  Speaker 4: who's queer, whose trans who's LGBT, your very existence publicly
• 21:49
  Speaker 4: is an active advocacy, is an active resistance. And I
• 21:52
  Speaker 4: do not take it lightly how hard it can be
• 21:55
  Speaker 4: to come out, especially because of issues of safety, physical safety,
• 22:00
  Speaker 4: emotional safety. In the professions. A lot of people have
• 22:03
  Speaker 4: a fear about coming out about either their own sexuality
• 22:07
  Speaker 4: or their own mental health diagnosis because they.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Don't want their livelihood to be impacted.
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  Speaker 4: So and I really want to assure you you come
• 22:15
  Speaker 4: out and you be yourself in your own time, because
• 22:17
  Speaker 4: you'll read in the memoir it took. It was a
• 22:19
  Speaker 4: year's long process for me to be comfortably sitting here
• 22:23
  Speaker 4: with you as another profession doing this. Yet your existence
• 22:30
  Speaker 4: is advocacy right now and will continue to be. And
• 22:39
  Speaker 4: if what I have been able to do has has
• 22:41
  Speaker 4: helped one other person be a little more okay with
• 22:44
  Speaker 4: who they are and speaking out about it.
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: Then I know I've been meant to do this.
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: As we kind of wind down here, what currently is
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: your reallylationship to religion to God?
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: I love this question because I actually have no issue
• 23:07
  Speaker 4: at all with God. I think I have a very
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: strong relationship personally with the God of my understanding. I
• 23:16
  Speaker 4: have a God who uses all pronouns, who shows up
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: in all ways, and even the Christian mythology, so to speak,
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: the Christian story, the person of the Christ, and what
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: he represents, I'm cool with him. I mean, I think
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: my read on Christianity is a little more progressive, certainly
• 23:34
  Speaker 4: a lot more progressive than the way that I was raised.
• 23:37
  Speaker 4: And I also draw from the wisdom and inspiration of
• 23:40
  Speaker 4: other faith traditions. I believe all spiritual paths made in
• 23:44
  Speaker 4: the middle. So I personally think one of the reasons
• 23:49
  Speaker 4: I was so wounded by religion and the Church is
• 23:52
  Speaker 4: that everything in me is wired for spiritual connection and
• 23:57
  Speaker 4: spiritual practice and connecting with the Divine all its forms,
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  Speaker 4: And so to be told that the way I naturally
• 24:05
  Speaker 4: want to do it is wrong and bad and sinful.
• 24:08
  Speaker 4: I think was a big part of the damage. So
• 24:10
  Speaker 4: I'm not saying you have to get cool with God
• 24:13
  Speaker 4: to heal from this. Everybody's healing path looks different. Yet
• 24:17
  Speaker 4: I truly say from the depths of my soul that
• 24:21
  Speaker 4: God is not the problem for me. It's what done
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: in God's name that has been the problem for me.
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: The book again, is you like to me about God?
• 24:31
  Speaker 1: A memoir? Jeimie. What's the best way for people to
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: learn more about you and reach out and get in
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: contact with you?
• 24:39
  Speaker 4: Yeah, my name dot com if you're looking online at
• 24:43
  Speaker 4: like jamiemarriage dot com that links you to the books.
• 24:47
  Speaker 4: My training company is Institute for Creative Mindfulness dot com.
• 24:51
  Speaker 4: That's where I do EMDR therapy trainings at. I also
• 24:54
  Speaker 4: have a free resource site at redefined Therapy dot com
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: that people can access any time. The books available wherever
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: books are sold, and you could find me on any.
• 25:03
  Speaker 3: Of the socials just search Awesome, Jamie. I love talking
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: to you every time I do. I'm like good, a
• 25:10
  Speaker 3: jolt of energy and inspiration. Welcome back. We'll be in touch.
• 25:15
  Speaker 2: Thank you guy. Bye.