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- [00:00]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
When World War II ended in 1945, the USA had to address a very specific gender change that had happened during the war. While the men were at war, women had gone out to work for the very first time. And they liked their jobs, they liked having financial freedom, the ability to make choices. They had friends outside of the home. They didn't want to go back to just being stay at home wives who really didn't have any job options once they were married. So the United States launched a massive propaganda campaign that became known as, as we know it today, as the 1950s housewife. Huge billboards and ads of beautiful women, perfectly done up, hair rolled, long skirts, happy and joyous to be cleaning their home and so excited for a new vacuum cleaner. We see a lot of that around us today. The Trad Wife movement is in full bloom. You can walk into anthropology or Target and see these long little House on the Prairie dresses and this convincing image online that you'll be so happy here, you'll be so happy if you just come home and cook and clean and be a stay at home wife. But what those propaganda campaigns don't tell you is that in the 1950s for women, suicide was incredibly high. So was domestic violence. Amphetamines, barbiturates and benzodiazepines were so commonly prescribed to help women cope with their day that they were advertised in magazines as Mommy's little helpers. And traditional evangelicalism has really pushed this idea of the traditional wife to the harm of others. And today on the podcast I have writer of the well trained wife Tia Livings to come share her story escaping Christian patriarchy on today's episode of Flipping Tables. Hello and welcome back everybody. Thank you so much for the recent ratings and reviews on the show. It is incredibly helpful and it keeps me not only in podcast playlists but also helps me find sponsors for the show to bring you even bigger names to interview as well as to be able to do some podcasts on location and specific Q&As. I'm really excited for today's episode. I read Tia Loving's book in one day and it was so true to how I was raised in the church and a big part of the reason that I don't participate in organized religion at all anymore. And she is just an inspirational beacon of light, not just for leaving Christian patriarchy and Christianity, but also healing, just healing from trauma, becoming yourself, learning yourself, even if you didn't have the tools to do that when you were younger. A truly inspiring conversation today with Tia Levings and I'm so excited you're here to join the both of us. Tia, welcome to Flipping Tables. Thank you so much for being here with me today. In the intro, I already talked about the fact that I read your book, the well Trained Wife in one day. I couldn't stop reading it.
- [02:52]
Tia Levings
I.
- [02:52]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
All of work could stop. I cried with you. And for you. Being raised in this world and now being someone who has completely walked away from it, but see, friends and my families and my sisters really still trapped in it. I'm just so deeply appreciative that you took the time to be here.
- [03:11]
Tia Levings
Oh, thank you. And big kudos. That's a lot to take in one day. So your blessed little nervous system. I just want to give you a hug.
- [03:20]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
I just sit in the room and kind of meditate a little bit before I could go to sleep, so. And for the people who haven't read your book, I'm gonna, like, really kind of talk about your life. Tell me about your introduction to faith, like, anywhere from your childhood to your early teen years.
- [03:37]
Tia Levings
Yeah. So it's really basic and normal and so mainstream. My first 10 years of childhood were spent in a rural community in Upper Michigan, and we went to church as part of our lives, but really kind of, you know, spotty. Religion was like this thing that was, I knew, was like part of an adult life. And it was something we did occasionally. Christmas and Easter, definitely. But my parents are very hardworking people, and if we needed to get work done on Sunday, it was no big deal for us to stay home and work on the weekend or relax on the weekend. You know, One of my favorite memories growing up with my dad is going to Sunday breakfast and he always get eggs Benedict and I would have my toast and bacon. And sometimes we wouldn't quite make it to church. My mom would be there, you know, because she loved music in the choir. And so, like, I remember lots of typical 80s type stuff. The felt boards, the Bible stories, all the felt boards. All like that normal 90s, too. I call it my trauma light because I do have some very scary hell trauma from my. From my early childhood around 4 and 5. And I. I prayed my little prayer when I was four and a half. And, you know, that big weighty decision, they put children's shoulders to decide their faith for the rest of their lives. I have that. And then it really just stayed that way until we moved to Florida when I was 10 and we joined a mega church. It was one of the largest churches in the Southeast at the time. Well, the whole country. We had 20,000 on. On roll and miss First Baptist Jacksonville. Very, very large church. And then within a few short years, I was going six days a week. And I was in the trenches of, again, mainstream evangelical culture in the late 80s and early 90s. So, like, this is cont. Christian music and true love waits and abstinence and rapture and an America within an America. Because the evangelical church was becoming more nationalist and more politicized and more fundamentalist as I grew up. So that's kind of like my first 20 years.
- [05:35]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And so what changed with your parents going from. Because if you're going from I'm going twice a year to basically every day. What was the shift for them?
- [05:45]
Tia Levings
Some of it was just that my sister and I were in puberty and they were very scared that we would go wrong. You know, like, it's just scary to be a young parent. There's a lot of social standing and belonging, and it seemed like such a safe place to bring your kids. So this church was very wealthy, very white, very happy. And so it was like a great, safe place to have your kids involved. And they would. Then they would not make dangerous friendships. They would not get engaged in dangerous behaviors. And you could trust everything that they were surrounded with was positive and good and healthy, and they didn't have really any evidence to the contrary. I think this is really important in those churches that when there is evidence to the contrary, it's shuttled away.
- [06:25]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yes.
- [06:25]
Tia Levings
So when you couple that with. Exactly. When you have a major marketing arm, you know, with this wealthy church we had 11 city blocks downtown, like, everybody in town went there. It was like, there's no escaping it. And when I went to public school, I was surrounded by 50 to 75 kids who went to my church. So I didn't even need to interact with people who weren't from that same footprint, which was just, I think, really assuring to my parents, who were very, again, very busy and hardworking. And this is the 80s, so everybody's a little feral and they're trusting their environment. There's so many factors that went into it, but they really promoted a wholesome environment. And my parents trusted I was in a wholesome environment. And I myself would have said, this is great and happy. Like, I'm having a great time with my friends, and we're teaching everyone about Jesus and we are the most. Right. And if you do it our way, you'll be the most happy. That all seemed very plausible.
- [07:20]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yeah, that's. I mean, and you bring up a good point. That I haven't really talked about on the show because I've fully deconstructed and walked away from organized religion entirely and putting on children that you have to decide where you're gonna spend eternity when you're four or five years old. I was five years old. A child. One is not supposed to handle pressure like that and two doesn't have the mental acuity to understand what it is you're telling them.
- [07:45]
Tia Levings
That's key because indoctrination interferes with child development. There are other things five year olds are supposed to be doing that we were not doing because we were learning first time obedience and indoctrination. And so before we even know who we are, we are already deciding what we're going to be for the rest of our lives. We're already aligning with a faith group and a theology. And we are instead of learning to become assertive and explore ourselves and know ourselves, we are falling into line with what they're telling us to be. So they don't have a goal of producing an autonomous adult with agency. That is not what they want. And that's. But it is what child development leads to. If you successfully develop a child, you will have a fully actualized adult who can take care of herself. And that is not what religion wants.
- [08:29]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Well, it's telling you what to think, not how to think.
- [08:31]
Tia Levings
Exactly.
- [08:32]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And hence the Bible in schools and the ten Commandments because you got to get them young. You gotta lock em in young so that they'll stay committed to it their whole life. And when you kinda hit your teen years, was there ever a moment now you're going to church more frequently where things took a turn or things kind of felt unsettling. Did you ever have any doubt at that time about what you were participating in in your like teens to late teens?
- [08:57]
Tia Levings
So when I was 12 and 13, I was gangly and awkward and lizard like I was not a cute kid and I was not socially accepted in this wealthy white church who, you know, all of them had gone to church with each. They were in the nursery. And so I'm this outsider and I'm this awkward redheaded kid with weird teeth and freckles. And so I did not like going to church the first few years. I hated being drugged down there. I hated having to put a dress on. I was an outdoorsy kid and I would have rather just, you know, I was angry about the move. All of there's a lot of like family stuff happening there because they didn't prepare us for that move. It was culture shock, the South. I'm not like, I'm fair complected. So I hated everything about where we were. And I went through kind of a rebellious stage that actually felt good in my body. I was reading wild books. I was going to the library a lot. I made a dangerous friend at a private school. Yeah. And we were like little rebels and we were reading about rebels and like a hot day with us was going to the library and then to the mall to bum quarters off old men and do, you know, just that kind of a thing. But then we got into a little sexual trouble and I ended up sexually assaulted in a way that I didn't even fully understand until I wrote the book years later. So. But it was formative because it scared me and it scared me to Jesus, basically. And so once I got in that box, I was really in that box from 14 on. I believed that I would be in jeopardy if I stepped a foot out of line. I was people pleasing and fawning and in a trauma response at that point, I very much wanted what they wanted for me. So that was pretty convenient, you know, like, if you happen to want to be a Christian wife and mother, then there's no rub there. You know, like, they're all too happy to mold you there. And like, perfect.
- [10:46]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
That's great.
- [10:48]
Tia Levings
You're not even resisting. This is great.
- [10:52]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yeah. So what did, what is your memories? Like, what did purity culture teach you about yourself when you were learning it? What did it teach you about a woman? What was your impression? What was your belief around what a woman is?
- [11:06]
Tia Levings
At that time, I had a combination of societal pressure plus overt instruction. So we had etiquette classes, we had ladylike classes. We had older teachers teaching us that we needed to keep our voices very high pitched and sweet all the time. We had to keep sweet. We had to be very modest. If you met me, this is Jacksonville, Florida, in the summer, I would have a turtleneck on underneath a long sleeve prairie dress. And I passed out. We went to New York on a choir tour and I passed out multiple times on that trip because of my hyper modest clothes. Clothing in the middle of the summer. But I was romanticizing Anne of Green Gables and, you know, everything related to that. They told us our ankles would be sexy if we. That's all we know. And this is parallel 90s fashion. So like the long straight khaki shirts, skirts and denim skirts and things like that were in fashion. It's like the similar thing happening now with the revitalization of like 90s fashion and the trad stuff, the prairie dress. Like, I go into Target and I'm like, what the fuck is this?
- [12:08]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
I was like, and you can see me, like, and this is on video. Like, I've got this huge costume, jewelry, fishnets. I walked in and I saw these tradresses, and I'm like, you could not pay me enough. There is no circumstance.
- [12:19]
Tia Levings
Let's put you in some pink flowers to your feet. I mean, yeah, if you want to.
- [12:23]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Wear that, obviously, great. But, like, it feels in the current environment that we're in, so propaganda.
- [12:28]
Tia Levings
Like, it is.
- [12:29]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
It feels real pushy. And I'm like, I remember this in the 90s because, like, that was when I was kind of coming up 90s, early 2000s. It was still that purity culture, abstinence, modesty. A man's going to get turned on by your shoulders. And I'm like, well, why doesn't he turn his head, right? Why don't you just look in a different way?
- [12:47]
Tia Levings
The Bible says he gouge his eyes out.
- [12:50]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Take care of that.
- [12:51]
Tia Levings
Quit looking at me. It's not my fault, you know? Yeah, that's what I did. I internalized the shame. I internalized that it was my job always to fix his problem, to relieve him of his temptation. We weren't taught anything about sex at all. We knew that we would learn that, like, right up to our wedding. We would kind of get some information. But we knew, you know, that's like the. The. It's like a holistic attitude of pleasing, that it's your job to please and be pleasing in all ways at all times. So, you know, I expected a certain level of submission and subservience that was also preached from the pulp. Yeah, I thought that if I was sweet enough and modest enough and pure enough, like all. All eyes were, like, getting to the wedding day virgin. That was like. That was the thing.
- [13:41]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
That's the big victory of your whole life.
- [13:43]
Tia Levings
That's it right there. You've, like, leveled up if you've achieved it. That was the whole focus. And so I knew that if I could just follow the rules well enough, everything would be fine. Because that's what God blessed. God blessed obedience.
- [13:57]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And so how did this teaching really lead to your husband?
- [14:03]
Tia Levings
Well, in the biggest way. So he didn't grow up there, but he grew up in a similar Southern Baptist church in a small town. My understanding was that you don't argue with men who say they've heard from God, and so God's best. You're always praying that you'll meet God's best in marriage. God's best in marriage.
- [14:21]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
That I should have said ex husband. I meant husband in the context of your book. But it's ex husband, just to be clear. Sorry, go ahead.
- [14:28]
Tia Levings
So Alan shows up on the scene like he's this new dashing sailor. You know, I'm pretty familiar with all the guys that I had available, and they knew me, you know. Cause we grew up together in the same youth group. It was a very large one. 500 kids, you know, but. Whoa.
- [14:40]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
That was your youth group?
- [14:41]
Tia Levings
Yeah, just high school, too. Like, middle school was another 500 kids. Like, this is our big environments. We're divided by side of town, you know, like, there's 45, 80 kids in my one neighborhood school Sunday school class. So I knew that I probably wasn't going to marry any of those boys because we'd already known each other for a long time, and nobody had liked me that way. And so that wasn't a thing. And at 19 a year out of high school, I was getting stale because you move up, you're called fresh meat, and you move up. And so now you have access to older guys. But again, none of them really liked me. And so in comes this group of sailors because Jacksonville's a port town. And they came to First Baptist, basically, to meet girls. And he shows up and he knows the language because he grew up Baptist, too, and he liked me. And within a month, we were engaged. He said he was God's best for my life. And all of that grooming and shaping had morphed me into somebody who did not argue with that. That was you. If God says that this is who you're supposed to marry, then you marry him. And you'll know that because he'll tell you. And if a man tells you that, then that's all you need to know.
- [15:53]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yep. And how reductive for women to make marriage like the peak moment of their life, even as a young woman.
- [16:03]
Tia Levings
I mean, I kind of. That's interesting from my background in that my mom is like an elbows up, roll your sleeves. You know, get in there. And I knew they weren't mutually exclusive, that I could have a husband and still have all these other things. But the church did not say that. They said, you, this is your one outcome. And they, I think, assumed that people would get together because they liked each other. So they didn't spend any time talking about chemistry or compatibility or anything like that where you would have, like, a litmus test. And I think it's such a faulty Assumption. Because that is not what we talked about so much. Like you would like each other or like something about that person. But it was also like, are they a godly man? Do they promise to me to pray every day? Are they going to lead your home that doesn't really connect with chemistry? Or do we have the same goals for the same ideas?
- [16:54]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
You know, growing up in this environment too, and mine was again, like 90s and early 2000s, it was basically the same thing. But I remember, like, you know, there's no conversation about consent or what's the expectations in the home. What kind of life do you want to have? You were never taught to ask those questions or even that those were questions you could ask. Because in my. The way that my upbringing. Cause I was the girl who didn't wanna get married and have kids. So I was the one that they were like, you need to submit your bride to God. Cause I knew when I was 12, I was never having kids. I was like, I'm not doing that. That's not for me. It's too big of a calling to not be sure that you want it. And I always came from the perspective of coming from an abusive home. I think that being a parent is the most important calling you could possibly have. So you have to make sure that it's what you want and it's what you're prepared for. But the way that my pastors would spin it for me was that, like, either this man is magically gonna come in and tell me he's the man for me, or my dad's gonna be the one who says, this is the man for you. But I didn't know anything. I didn't know about consent. I didn't know anything about sex or contraception. I didn't know how to ask questions. And after being in a couple abusive dating relationships, I read the book why Does he do that? By Dr. Lundy Bancroft.
- [18:10]
Tia Levings
You did? That's so rebellious of you.
- [18:13]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
I did. And I'm reading this book and, well, this was recent. This was only like four years ago.
- [18:17]
Tia Levings
Okay.
- [18:17]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And I'm reading this book and I'm like, why does every girl on the planet not get gifted this book? Because if I had been able to see this and understand that this is how manipulation works, I would have seen this so much sooner before it escalated. But the church never even really talks about domestic violence. No, I don't remember them ever talking about it.
- [18:38]
Tia Levings
If you learn to identify patterns of manipulation, you're gonna apply it to them too. So that's why they don't pass it out. Yeah.
- [18:45]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
They're like, no, we can't do that.
- [18:47]
Tia Levings
No.
- [18:48]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
So you marry Alan and then tell me, you know, kind of a summary through the book. Your. Your journey with Alan and your kids and what happened and what made you finally make a change.
- [18:59]
Tia Levings
Yeah. So I didn't know him very well when we got married.
- [19:02]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
How long was it between the time you met to when you were married?
- [19:05]
Tia Levings
A year.
- [19:06]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
A year.
- [19:06]
Tia Levings
A year. We were engaged after that first month. And there was violence in our dating engagement period, but I didn't know to call it that. And this is a big detriment to me throughout my. Through lines here, is that I didn't have language or understanding to interpret what was happening. So in hindsight, I kind of look back and say, oh, there was violent incidences. But can you give me an example.
- [19:29]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Of that that you maybe couldn't label at the. If you feel comfortable, sure.
- [19:32]
Tia Levings
I mentioned a story in passing about his roommate, and he cuffed me in the neck and left me on a beach in a storm, alone and threatened. Accused me of cheating on him. And I looked at that like I was in shock. Nobody had hit me like that before. But I also knew I had failed somehow and, like, we'd had a fight. Those are the. That's the kind of language I use. It's like, we had a fight. I must have a redheaded temper. I must have done something wrong. And that's my conditioning to always examine myself for what I did wrong. He would threaten to run me off the road, threaten to decapitate me by semi truck. That happened while we were dating. And I didn't know. I thought, just don't get in a fight in the car. You know, like, that's like, be careful in the car. So I'm, like, learning to tiptoe around him and take care of his moods and become very codependent. But I didn't have any vocabulary to tell somebody else, and I wouldn't have even known. Like, it would have been very embarrassing to tell somebody else because clearly that's my fault. It's all my failure. It's. He can't be wrong. It never dawned on me that he could be wrong until we get much further into our marriage where I'm like, I'm doing everything I can as perfectly as I can, and it's still erratic and messed up. And then there were situations that didn't always involve me that I knew I didn't have anything to do with. But we got pregnant very quickly. My marriage My wedding night was sexual assault three times. Very put me into a state of shock. And I kind of stayed in a state of shock for a long period of time through our marriage. I was pregnant nine times that first pregnancy happened, happened within the first three months. They were early miscarriages. And I had five live births and four surviving children. So that's. It was pretty eventful for 11 years together that way. And my first baby was born in 96. We got married at the end of 94, so about 18 months after we were married. And if that long, my math's bad. So he, he didn't, you know, he was a baby. He cried. And I knew that if Alan didn't get a good night's sleep, that violence would be worse. And I was now worried that it would hurt my child. And so I turned to older, wiser women at church. This is taught Titus 1, Titus 2 teaches the older women to teach the younger women to be keepers of the home and to love their husbands. And so I was like, well, who can I ask for advice? I can ask somebody who has 10 kids. I didn't know Bill Gothard or the IBOP at this point, but I knew that we had, that we had these super extra Christians, special Christians in our church that were like extra devout. They didn't use birth control, they didn't control the sides of their families. They all had, you know, like eight plus kids. They had big vans, they dressed like Little House on the Prairie. And so they felt like a very safe name.
- [22:25]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Like, makes my blood pressure go up.
- [22:26]
Tia Levings
Your whole blood pressure.
- [22:28]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
My whole body starts to shake. I'm sewing anyways.
- [22:30]
Tia Levings
Rightly so. Rightly so.
- [22:32]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Such a monster.
- [22:33]
Tia Levings
Such a monster. And he had this, you know, for your listeners who don't know, Bill Gothard ran something called the Institute of Basic Life Principles that had these massive events, like they were like Billy Graham crusades in stadiums. And they were multi denominational. Anybody could come to his conference and learned the Bible. And you were going to learn to be more holy and more devout in your Christian walk. And then you would go back into your church and you would recruit IBOP families from within. So you're like cannibalizing from within. And that's what had happened at First Baptist. We had had this contingency, this rise of homeschoolers in a very conservative. They were super conservative at a time where mainstream Christians weren't that conservative yet. Like, it was pretty.
- [23:13]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
It was a lot more relaxed before.
- [23:15]
Tia Levings
Exactly.
- [23:16]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Because we even had that in the church growing up. We Had a couple families. And this is how I was introduced to Bill Gothard. My dad never went like whole hog into that, but we had families where it was like the women could only wear dresses. They could only wear, like floor length, long sleeves, you know, like limits around medicine and technology even. And we never went all the way in there. But my dad would sometimes borrow elements. But I remember we went through a few lessons with. And I just remember being like, this is weird. Like, I don't. And then of course, his predictably fall from grace later on. I'm just too much.
- [23:49]
Tia Levings
Well, it's the trad movement in the beginning, like it is. I was a trad wife. We called it traditional, and that's what trad's short for. So, you know, it's the same thing today. What we have is the critical mass. It's just, you know, hit the mainstream, but on that very smaller level. This was the trad movement being born and hitting enough mass in our mainstream church that where I knew to go to, who to go to for advice. And that's what that was my entry point into the iblp. I was never like a paying member or I never attended a conference, but I was the recipient of all the teachings because they mentored me, they gave me books, they taught my husband. And we started implementing these practices without being fully aware of what we were kind of aligning with. It just seemed like we were being simple and more devout and more holy. And that if we just followed these steps and lived this way, we would have this happy outcome. So it's the same always, though. They promise you a happy family, successful children, a good country, godly outcomes. If only you do this, this and this. And if that doesn't happen, it's your fault. You did something wrong. It's wrong.
- [24:55]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
The prosperity gospel just applied to your family.
- [24:57]
Tia Levings
Exactly. And so I tapped in. I'm like, I want a happy family. I want to solve this violence problem in my family. And I was really good at following formulas and putting my whole back into it. So I was a great trad wife. I did everything.
- [25:13]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
It's like I checked all the boxes.
- [25:15]
Tia Levings
Oh, every box double.
- [25:17]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
That's one of the things. So I've never been married, and I am so thankful that I didn't get married in my late teens and early twenties, because the way my faith was at the time, I. That's exactly what I would have done. Like, I resonated so much when you talked about, like, I jumped all the way in and I just committed and I did more And I cooked more and I cleaned more and I did all these things. I was like, that is exactly how I would have been if I had gotten married. Between 18 and 23, which is a developmental stage.
- [25:44]
Tia Levings
There's a reason why the missionaries and these movements go after young people. We have this like, rise of male incels. The 18 to 23 year old, they don't even have fully developed brains yet, but they are the audience that that movement always goes for.
- [25:58]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yep. And they know that they're manipulating them. They're using their pain to gain from that, but also keep those men broken and lonely and lost and longing for intimacy. Because they've taught the men that intimacy is sex and it's not the same thing. They've also told them that as a man, you just need a good job and to conquer women. And it's just. And it's just building on itself. And now we're seeing the rise in violence and lonely men who haven't been given the tools to be fully human.
- [26:24]
Tia Levings
Right. Or to exist.
- [26:26]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yeah.
- [26:26]
Tia Levings
They don't have to be dehumanizing in an equal environment. They have no ability to do that. And the women to their part like this. They are the soldiers and they are the mothers and they are the most fertile. And so movements really know how to exploit youth.
- [26:41]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yeah. It's becoming abundantly clear in our current chapter. So as you're going through this process of, you know, you're dealing with abuse at home now, there's lots of kids and then the blog happens. Can you tell us about that? Cause I'm doing this show for people as if they've never read the book. I've read the book. I know exactly where things go. But tell us about starting the blog.
- [27:04]
Tia Levings
So I. We go back to that childhood memory. I was always a writer. I was always somebody who is very creative, highly creative. The Internet had already played a pretty significant role in my life because my daughter died. My daughter Clara, she was baby number three. She died in 99. And I was not able to go back to that ardent girl who did everything perfect. I was not able to pretend like she didn't exist, jump right in with the next baby, toe the line. I had seen too much of the world, too much of grief was utterly cracked open. And I also felt this loyalty to be somebody Clara would have been proud of, like a mother that would. Clara would have been proud of. And that means including her and being changed by her and not allowing this to be, you know, covered up. And so I had found the Internet shortly Thereafter. And it was a group of women who were like my portal to normal. We read books, we talked about dangerous ideas. We were homeschooling mothers. We were talking about this like very safely. It wasn't like they were all rebels, but they were different kinds of Christians from different kinds of backgrounds. And we were trying to educate ourselves. And so it was this. It was called the Trapdoor Society, and it was very much a trapdoor. And so I had spent a lot of time writing on that forum and gathering my thoughts and all of that. So that when in 2004, when blogging is brand new, my brother in law gave me my first domain and my first WordPress blog as a Christmas present. And I just wrote now I was a tradwife blogger. I was towing the party line there.
- [28:35]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
But even then, it was when I remember reading that book where when you came to that part, I'm like, oh, she's waking up.
- [28:42]
Tia Levings
Yes, I was.
- [28:43]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
You were still toeing the line, but you were waking up. Because there's these moments, every person I know that's deconstructed in any way, there's this moment where they start to wake up. So tell me more about it. Sorry, I'm just really.
- [28:54]
Tia Levings
This book so much like, apart from all of my life experiences, the way I transmute and digest information is through writing. And so I need to write in order to kind of know what I think about it. I'm also creative that way with words and word images. And I was a photographer too. I had taught myself that. And so blogging was just this very natural, organic way for me to start having an identity, having a name, sharing my ideas, exploring my ideas, questioning myself on the page. It was humanity, like a vein of humanity, where I was. Didn't have any at the time I started blogging, I was also in the highest control, most cult environment of my entire story. We were in a wife spanking cult church that is affiliated with Doug Wilson. And that is. If you're. If that's familiar to your ears, it's because Pete Hegseth, who's in our cabinet, belongs to the same denomination. This is very tied to current events. And so I was like in that world. And then at home, I was exploring like I was feeling like a human being again for the first time in years. And so I actually get excommunicated for that because I refused to put that blog in my husband's name. The elders did not like that I was writing with my own name and having my own thoughts, even though I was writing about Cloth diapers and beans and recipes and, you know, all the traddy things they do not want. They knew the power of words. They knew that me having an identity online under my name was not gonna be ultimately submissive.
- [30:26]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Well, and also just, you know, especially with the extreme versions of these type of cults, as a woman having an identity at all undermines this idea that you exist solely for the pleasure and purpose of your husband, that any work you do is to support him. And even the women who, you know, oh, my goodness, they work outside the home, it's in some way to support their husband's career.
- [30:50]
Tia Levings
Always.
- [30:50]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yes.
- [30:51]
Tia Levings
Yeah. She's a reflection. She's a reflection of him. And a lot of trad wives use that industry of their own as a justifiable line of, well, it's for the family, and as long as it's for the family, then it's okay. But it's not about her or her name or her ideas. It's supposed to stay in this narrow lane. And I think I was using maybe too many I statements or reading outside the lines a lot. Like, I would do book reviews and stuff, and they knew I was reading books that weren't allowed. There's a lot of book banning in high control religion and.
- [31:22]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Well, we're seeing that publicly now too.
- [31:23]
Tia Levings
We are. They have always done the same things. Nothing that's happening hasn't been always the case.
- [31:28]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yeah, it's just. It just put on a new T shirt and a cross necklace and said.
- [31:32]
Tia Levings
Here we are, a really big cross. I called Caroline Livitt, the vampire slayer, because it's.
- [31:37]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
I honestly, I did wear my big cross today specifically for that reason.
- [31:41]
Tia Levings
No vampires will get you.
- [31:43]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
No vampires will get me. It's like, I am the vampire. What do you mean? So when was the moment that you were like, I'm done. I'm not doing this anymore. And when did all of it kind of break? Because you get to this point where you're like, I can't. I don't have enough shame to keep toeing this line and laying myself down on the altar every day. Because for me, when I lost my shame, I lost my motivation to do a lot of things that I didn't realize were purely shame motivated. And I had to rebuild positive motivation for those things that were good things, like going to the gym. But I was struggling with an eating disorder and being in the gym all the time out of shame because of this idea of, well, as a woman, it's your job to be pretty and put together all the Time for your future husband. And if you don't do that, then you're not worth anything anymore. And when I lost the shame, I just couldn't hold onto that anymore the way that I did. So you start losing this as you're writing, and you're kind of getting your humanness back. When did the Levy break or start to break?
- [32:48]
Tia Levings
Yeah. So my story is different from yours in that my shame break came actually years after my escape. So my subtitle in my book is My Escape from Christian Patriarchy. And my escape was an actual physical, harrowing escape. By midnight, after being held hostage for four hours, I narrowly escaped a murder suicide with my children. But the shame that I divested from that would come actually years later. It really came down to survival. I was breaking. I knew I had checked all the boxes. If I have a persistent character flaw that I still work on today that's tied to that, that's not like a new revelation. It's that I have always had a tendency to romanticize and magically think and stay in situations that are really dysfunctional and dangerous too long. And so it's really growth for me to see the warning signs early and act on them instead of waiting until it gets to the last exit on the highway. I, in this situation, definitely waited until the very last minute. I had tried to make it perfect. I had tried to do it so well, I knew I had exhausted my ability to do that. I'd also exhausted my desire to do that because I didn't want to have a God that didn't care about me. Like, why should I care? If you don't care about me, the human being, Tia, then why should I be here?
- [34:05]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
You know, why do I care about you?
- [34:08]
Tia Levings
Right. Because they're so. Women are so interchangeable in patriarchy. You just need the body parts. You need the hands, you need the vagina, you need the womb. You don't need her brain, you know, or her.
- [34:18]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
You don't need her. As a human personhood matters precisely zero in patriarchal Christianity.
- [34:24]
Tia Levings
So my annihilation was kind of on the line, and I still wouldn't leave. And then it wasn't until my children were threatened and I realized, we're going to either die here, or I'm going to create the next generation abusers and women who will stay with abusers if I stay here another minute. And I was going to leave the next day quietly and calmly. I just didn't get that far because he had a psychotic break that night. And. And we were in real jeopardy. So then when we left, I mean, talk about shame. I mean, it's such a failure. My one job was to be a good Christian wife and mother, and I had failed at it. So I actually contended with shame for the next 10 years. It was not.
- [35:01]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And how did you. How did you start to heal that shame and like, relinquish yourself from the guilt? Because it's like, you didn't fail, right? Like you were with someone who was an abusive and mentally unwell person, who wasn't a good father or a good husband or a good leader or like, very questionably even a Christian, right? How do you. How did you deprogram that shame? How did it show up? What are some of the stories that helped you heal it?
- [35:26]
Tia Levings
It's really. I consider myself so fortunate because this. I left in 2007 and that was at the cusp of the ex evangelical movement. The coinage of the ph. Religious trauma, like the vocabulary that I needed as a writer. I needed language in order to interpret what had happened to me. And it started right away, that first, My first meeting with my attorney, he handed me a book called the Battered Woman. And I was like, I don't need this. I wasn't battered. And he's like, yes, you were. You'll see yourself on the pages. And I was like, to me, battered meant punched in the face. And I had never been punched in the face.
- [35:58]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Everything else, unless you're punched in the face, you go to the hospital or you die guy, right?
- [36:03]
Tia Levings
And you have to, you know, call the police. Like, I had never even filed a police report. So learning to take each situation and use the proper name for it, call it marital rape, call it manipulation, call it narcissism, call it codependency, people pleasing, neediness like that is what ultimately helped me understand and put these things into context. And then when I started writing as a book, it was a therapeutic journal at first, and then it became a novel and then it became my memoir. I had to take each scene and create a sequence and a setting. And then I could see. I could pull the lens back and see, okay, what's happening in the movement? What were my influencers? Who were the characters? What else was happening? Were these even fair asks of me? I was a child, I was a young woman. I was not given full information. I didn't have any agency. So then that contact then helps you divest from shame because you realize none of this was fair to you and you didn't do it all by yourself. And actually, I'm not powerful. Enough to be the villain of everything. I can't be the reason everything went wrong because I'm literally not a super villain.
- [37:10]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yes. I'm not powerful enough to absolutely control every detail of a situation. Like that's not possible.
- [37:18]
Tia Levings
Right. Yeah.
- [37:19]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
But it's this idea and it ties back to purity culture in the sense that, yes, you're, you know, in the church, it's your purpose is to be a good wife and a mother. And then they tack on this thing where all sexual sin or all problems in relationship are the fault of the woman.
- [37:33]
Tia Levings
Yes.
- [37:34]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Because if he does something well, it's cause you didn't submit enough. Well, if he cheats well, it's because you let yourself go.
- [37:39]
Tia Levings
Right.
- [37:39]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And it's these. It's just so unbelievably harmful. So where did you ever have a kind of a eureka moment where you were like, wow, I don't, I don't feel that shame anymore. Or I don't feel shame around this certain thing. Or was it kind of just a slow and gradual change?
- [37:58]
Tia Levings
Both. And there were moments where it was slow and gradual, depending on the category. And then the real piece, the real epiphany came. My second husband was not an abuser the way my first husband was an abuser, but he was a high control patriarch. And that's normal, you know, when you leave a cult like environment or a high control environment, we repeat cycles because of who we are and what we attract. And that happened. So he did not want to be married to a writer. And so when I sold the book, he's like, stop writing or stay married. And so I chose writing and I chose me. And when I chose me, and then I stepped out of that, like calmly and just rationally and went about my business and went about what I'm here for and stayed invested in my work and then went. I went and took this epic European chart trip on my terms, slowly, quietly. That's when I felt like I'm whole. I'm not just like a repaired person or always going to be broken or something's like eternally wrong with me. Like there's a lot of that stigma when you come out of abuse, that I'll just always be broken, always be a wounded bird. I know I don't have any time for that. I'm a whole person. I've put myself back together. I've reclaimed who Tia is. It took me a while to get there because I was denied, you know, child development. I had to still develop as a person. But I have done that I am an actualized human. So at 50, that feels great to be able to say, I love that.
- [39:28]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
That's. That, like, I can. And I can see in your face when you talk about it, it just gets brighter and brighter and brighter.
- [39:33]
Tia Levings
Yeah. It's my light.
- [39:35]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
It's incredible. So what. What's your kind of perspective, again, being through what you've been through? What's your perspective on Christianity in America today? Like, what. What do you see? How do we change the harm it's doing?
- [39:50]
Tia Levings
Yeah. So this is my work now because when I wrote the story, the book, I thought I was just writing a book. I often call it the real life prequel to the Handmaid's Tale. And I knew that it would be culturally interesting. I didn't expect it to be so culturally relevant. I feel like everything that I ran from and escaped from is here for my country, which gave me a unique insider's view and an ability to translate what's happening. It's. To talk about this over and over again, and to be able to retell the story without re. Traumatizing myself is a reflection of the trauma healing work that I've done. But also to be able to look at a headline and say, I can translate for that for you. I know where that came from and what this is from. And that's what really gave me my footing in my active advocacy work now, because I do have all this material and background, and it wasn't for nothing, like, I can use this. I can help somebody with it. I can make something beautiful with all the crap they gave me. So that's. That's kind of where I take it. We are living in the Christian vision that started in the 80s and 90s. They project 2025 and the heritage foundation all began at that same time in my character arc. And here we are. They have worked tirelessly and quietly for this outcome, and we're here. And now America's really at a decision point. Like, it's up to us to decide if this is what we want to do.
- [41:10]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
We're at a crossroads, and it's pretty severe.
- [41:13]
Tia Levings
Yeah. And we've lived this way before. Like, that's. That's the rub for me. It's like, wait a second. They're not suggesting rocket science or a new way of being or an evolution. They are considering going backwards to what we already know. We already have outcomes from that. We have.
- [41:26]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
We already know it doesn't work.
- [41:28]
Tia Levings
Exactly. There's a reason why we evolved from it in the first place. And they want to Go back. And so it's up to people who've lived that and said, no, actually, that's not. That's not going to result in what they promised. Their promises are bunk. And I can tell you why. I think that's the only hope we have.
- [41:43]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And that's actually been my thought. So my. I've more recently become a bigger talking head in this space.
- [41:49]
Tia Levings
And I love your content. Thank you.
- [41:52]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
It's actually been really refreshing to feel like everything kind of makes sense. Cause I wrestled a long time with like, why did I have to grow up in this environment? And all the abuse, like physical, emotional, psychological, religious, and go through all these things. You know, I went to Liberty, like it was such a. It was like. Like my entire existence Till I was 25. And now I realize I'm like, oh, because now because of my dad's insistence on my knowledge of American history and the Bible and fundamentalism and growing up with Republican politicians, I can call you on your shit because I know what you're doing and I know what you're manipulating. I know who you got it from. I know all the talking points. And I think. What do you think? Cause we know that the evangelical movement is so good at networking and they are so good at manipulating young people. How does the. Both the progressive community, like the general left and the exvangelicals, how do we step in and intercede for young people? Because that's really who the target is. And if they can latch on and pollute the 18 to 23 year olds, because they can pull women in too. They promise women this romantic, easy, beautiful life. And it is not that. It is not that they are setting you up for abuse and elder poverty and losing your identity because your identity doesn't matter to them. How do we. And even. And even with men, they've made men this reductive machine. And young men are getting left behind. They're critically lonely, they're suffering, they're in pain. How do we break that chain? How do we intercede there?
- [43:27]
Tia Levings
Yeah, I'm glad you said that. Because it's very important to emphasize that everyone suffers in patriarchy. There's no. Like, the men seem like they come out ahead and there are some women who will carry water for it. And they seem like they're benefiting from it, but not really, not in the long run. I think the thing that we have to do is keep telling the true stories. The thing that was missing in my experience was that I had no counter evidence. And one of the powers we have that we do really well online and with our. Our own networking is. We can blast the stories, we can get the network out, we can respectfully understand where they're coming from and stop vilifying them as, like, ignorant or naive. They're none of those things. They're the same thing. We were young people who want to do the right thing, and we're not trying to break our lives. We want to do the prosperous thing. We want to have a good outcome. And unless they have a counter evidence, they don't have a true choice to make. So offering them that choice and saying, actually, here's some outcome, this is how that worked out for me. You're still free to decide for yourself, but are you sure that that's gonna get you what you want? People don't like to feel shitty. And I think that when they are in that environment and they feel shitty, if they know there's a better way, they can see evidence of a better way, they'll have an option. And I think that's why the religious right works so hard to shut us down, Take our platforms, ban our books, you know, police our voices. Because they know that they can't. They can't actually risk a counter evidence because.
- [44:57]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Because some, some young people and people that are experiencing the negative impact of this, they. They'll intuitively. They already intuitively know something's not right. And so when presented with those stories, it's like, oh, okay, I'm not crazy, I'm not sinful. I'm not being selfish. I agree. And it's like, I really think that with every. The way that we're going, I truly believe that it's. It's the exvangelical voices that are gonna step up and say, hey, like, trust me, you don't want that. That's not where you want to be. And I did a little spiritual retreat this weekend, and one of the things that fell in for me was this epidemic of male loneliness. And being a woman and being someone who has definitely made content addressing the behavior and some of the entitlements of men, it really made me realize this weekend that again, men are hurting and they're hurting so much. And we've got this huge, again, traditional trad movement happening where you're just a paycheck and you're not allowed to feel all these emotions. And what I thought about this weekend when that fell in for me was when women are lonely or we're really hurt, we call mom, we call our sisters, we cry ourselves to sleep, we call our Girlfriends, we have been allowed to feel those emotions and reach out for community. And I think that men haven't been right. And so the options typically skew towards violence, addiction or self harm.
- [46:23]
Tia Levings
Right.
- [46:23]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And I realized this last weekend that the way that this changes and I think the way that we reach into young people is we cannot leave the men behind because women have been growing and elevating and evolving because we've finally had the opportunity to do so.
- [46:39]
Tia Levings
Right.
- [46:40]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And I think that's just something I realized that I had left out, that I wasn't stepping in enough and interceding for men enough in this movement, especially young men, saying, hey, this isn't good for you either and you're allowed to be a whole person and you're worth more than your job or how many women you conquer. And like, it's like you're not a simp cause you love somebody. That's crazy. These red pill guys are capitalizing you on your pain and leaving you more in pain or in jail.
- [47:08]
Tia Levings
Right. And that pain is really important because the pain leads to grief and grief when it's not expressed leads to anger. So if that's the only socially acceptable avenue they have is to get really mad about how much they're hurting. We're just going to end up with more anger from these men if we back it up and say, oh, we know you're hurting. Here's some empathy, here's some kindness. And they're vilifying empathy. They're working really hard on that right now.
- [47:32]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
I know that was like growing up with, you know, Jesus loves the little children of the world. Red.
- [47:38]
Tia Levings
Jesus is too liberal for them.
- [47:39]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And then now they're like the toxic sin of empathy. And I'm like, I'm sorry, what, what bible are you reading?
- [47:46]
Tia Levings
The Old Testament. The Conqueror and Vanquish. Yeah, exactly.
- [47:49]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
The genocide. God. They're like, yeah, we like him.
- [47:51]
Tia Levings
They like him.
- [47:52]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
He's our. It's absolutely insane. I can't. And before we started today, and I was looking at the stack of your books, you were talking about the novel that you're working on now revolving around bitterness, which I think ties into this. This anger and this emotion and how bitterness can be a catalyst for change. Can you tell us about the book, but also your thoughts on bitterness, how it relates to change.
- [48:15]
Tia Levings
So I should just insert here for a second. My second book is coming out next May. It's called the Soul of Healing, and it's a survivor's guide to recovery from religious trauma. And it's like A lay person's guide of everything I encountered in my trauma healing experience and what I think other people will benefit from. That's, like, tried and true. Like, I tried everything, went everywhere with it, and. And came out this very different person, which really led me to the whole bitterness vein of. There's so much shame in religion against bitterness. They don't want you to feel bitter. They don't. Like, they want you to suppress it and push it away and don't let bitterness be. But bitterness is something we feel when there's been injustice happening and then we are not allowed to address it. We are shutting down our empathy and we are looking the other way from crime. And we are not changing patterns and addressing abusers and holding people accountable. That's what makes us bitter. And. And we know in recovery that letting ourselves be bitter and letting that. That ragey fire inside of us against injustice, let it breathe, that's what fuels the change that we need does. That's. The two books are kind of tied because my Soul of Healing is a fire inside of me that I have to maintain. And that means I'm looking at injustices and letting myself feel angry about it and feel intolerant of like, no, this cannot stay. This is. This is not what I accept for my life. I will not be a broken person for the rest of my life. I have a saying, trauma took my past. It was not going to get my future and my present too. I'm in charge of that. So I use this fire inside of me to fuel the change. But I want to explore these stories of women who tamp it down and then learn to tap into it. So there's all kinds of ways that bitterness manifests in our life. Sometimes it makes us sick, Sometimes it toxifies our families and our generations. Yeah, exactly. So I think I'm really fascinated. I'm excited to get to write some fiction. It's always going to be like with an element of true religious horror, because that's what I'm comfortable with. And I know.
- [50:17]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
So your Soul of Healing book is that May of 25th or May of 26?
- [50:21]
Tia Levings
May of 26.
- [50:22]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
May of 26th. That comes out. I just wanted to clarify that in my brain.
- [50:25]
Tia Levings
Right, right. It's still a ways off, but it will have a way of getting here really quickly. So I'm excited about that. But the way publishing works, you know, you have to be working on your new projects right away. So this novel is kind of a modern retelling of the book of Job from his wife's point of view. I've always had a heart for her because he is such a good take. He's so lauded as this, like, righteous man. And I'm like, he radicalized on her, and she lost everything. And he's held up as this, like, wonderfully patient person, but she was not restored. And in the Jewish tradition, she has the name, she has a. She has the rest of her story. She dies, out with the cows. It's really sad. In my story, she's going to win. It's also a trad wife commune where the men radicalize and the women resist. So they learn to tap into their vision, their bitterness, and do something about it.
- [51:13]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Like, no.
- [51:15]
Tia Levings
Yeah, exactly. So I. I get fired up about this. You can tell my pace just changed, too. I'm like, I just cannot wait.
- [51:20]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Same. Sometimes somebody will hit a topic where I'm just like, are you joking? Like, well, and I had this conversation the other day with someone about, like, the fact that Jennifer Genesis is fiction. And, like, discussing that.
- [51:33]
Tia Levings
Pretty poetry.
- [51:34]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yeah. It's like, this is. This is not real. This is not even written in the same time frame. It's thousands of years after it supposedly happened. But then we. We discuss Job as well. And I'm like, there's so many, like, issues with Job. But, like, the one that cracks me up again, for people who take it literally, I'm like, okay, so who was recording the conversation between Satan and God? Yeah, when Satan just rolls.
- [51:55]
Tia Levings
I know. And he's like, hey, we're gonna play gambling.
- [51:58]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
We're gonna play a game. This is your most loyal person.
- [52:00]
Tia Levings
Cool.
- [52:01]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Kill his entire family and see what he does. That's crazy.
- [52:06]
Tia Levings
A maniacal view of God.
- [52:07]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
It's maniacal and cruel and brutal. And it's so interesting now to look back at it with that lens and just be like, man, I really 100% totally believed that. Yeah, I believed that all of this was literal. I believed all of it was true. I believed that doctors were aborting babies as they were being born. Like, I believed all of that.
- [52:29]
Tia Levings
That.
- [52:30]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And it's such a lie.
- [52:33]
Tia Levings
But it's. It's a chain of lies. You know, one is dependent upon the other. If you ever go back and read the part of Job where God and Job are talking, like, he kind of has had it at this point. He's lost everything. His wife, his health, everything. And he's at the point he's talked to all his friends, and his friends are like, okay, here are the takes he gets in this conversation with God. And it's a gaslitic, gaslit mess, the whole thing. How dare you question me? And. And that's what we carried. And once you have that in your heart of, how dare you question me? You're primed to obey and believe everything.
- [53:06]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And it's like you're so predisposed to believe magical thinking, that when someone puts war chats in a text thread, oh.
- [53:19]
Tia Levings
My God, they can't make it up.
- [53:20]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And then they say, no, I didn't. You're like, no, they didn't. It's not a big deal. It's not a war chat. Excuse me. It's got time signatures with the weapons and the bombing times and locations. What would you call that? And when someone gets shot at and their ear is magically healed the next week. Thank you. Really, really. That's fascinating. There's no mark at all. Interesting.
- [53:43]
Tia Levings
We're still talking about Kennedy, but we can't know anything about that shooting.
- [53:46]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Are you kidding? And the guy. The guy that did it just disappeared. And we don't know anything about him or where he is or what happened, which is like, huh, interesting.
- [53:53]
Tia Levings
It's that ability to question that's been shut down. And the veil is so thick. I mean, there's really no, like, breaking it from the outside. That is an internal change.
- [54:03]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
It is because you've been programmed from a young age that they tell you, oh, anyone who questions this is trying to lead you away from God. And thanks to, you know, especially during Reagan's administration, the evangelicals marrying into politics, becoming essentially a political party, is really what it is. It's not even a religion anymore. It's a political party. No, it's become really messy.
- [54:24]
Tia Levings
Yeah. Very, very convoluted. And deconstruction means you're gonna hit every layer.
- [54:29]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yes. And it's gonna be brutal. There's gonna be some rough moments in there. There will be. But what do you see? Like, what is your feeling for the future? Like, just kind of intuitively, what do you feel? What do you see?
- [54:42]
Tia Levings
I really believe we still have a lot of chance, a lot of hope. I believe that we have had a little bit of Pandora's box. You can't put it all back. You can't just, like, liberate generations of women and then tell them they have to go back to corsets in silence. I don't think that's necessarily gonna work. I really do prefer a progressive, evolutionary, expansive view of both the universe and God and humanity. I like utopian and protopian futures, not dystopian I really like the idea of advancement and understanding things. I'm not scared of new technology, I'm curious about it. And I try to retain that sense of curiosity and wonder because it's inherently anti fundamentalist. If you're curious and can ask questions and you're wondering and you don't always have to have the right answer for everything, you're in a like innocuized place against rigid thought and form. So it's a healthy place for me to be and I try to be that in my interactions with people and hopefully it's contagious. I like curious smart people who are doing curious smart things and I believe in that contagion and critical mass like can still win. And I traveling helped because I got to see what like for example, what Europeans think of America, which was much different than hearing about what Europeans think of America. Go actually have a conversation with them and broaden your worldview. It was huge. And really if you're inside of that and you're thinking I can't do that because I'll get in trouble with God or whatever, then question why do you have such a limited view of God? God can't think of another way to get you or take care of you in that setting or you know, like did he have to drown everybody in Noah's ark? Or is an all powerful God capable of a new solution?
- [56:26]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yeah, right.
- [56:27]
Tia Levings
Yeah. Staying in that curious place.
- [56:29]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And what I tell people, especially with people who are wrestling with, they don't feel comfortable walking away from the idea of God. Like I have some friends who have completely deconstructed into atheists and some that are like for me it's like God inherently in my mind is this entity that is so big and so different from anything. I understand that there's no way I can give. Even saying him right is limited, right?
- [56:55]
Tia Levings
Exactly.
- [56:55]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
If both masculine and feminine are divine and they operate on a spectrum, who's to say that God even has gender?
- [57:03]
Tia Levings
Right?
- [57:03]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
We don't know. And if everything, if everything has purpose, then why wouldn't it matter what time and day and place you were born? And that certain characteristics come up for those kind. Like I challenge people. I'm like, what if God is all this and more?
- [57:21]
Tia Levings
Yeah, that's exciting to me. I love that makes me so excited.
- [57:24]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
I'm like, well it could be this or what if this. What's the universe really like? And it's so. And I get excited cause I'm like, it makes me so excited. And I just listened to a Podcast online. Like, kind of like the fourth dimension. And it's that curiosity to be like. I think that it's probably far more likely that I don't understand any of this.
- [57:46]
Tia Levings
Yeah. And isn't that better than solving for God? I don't want a God that can fit in a box in a little catechism. I want wonder.
- [57:53]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
I want someone who's so angry that he just like kills entire groups of people and he doesn't like them.
- [57:58]
Tia Levings
Like, I created you, now I'm gonna smote you. Like, why do that?
- [58:02]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Sounds like a good loving God to me. That doesn't. It doesn't seem correct. And so I just challenge people. Like, what if he's bigger than that?
- [58:08]
Tia Levings
Yeah.
- [58:09]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
He or she or they.
- [58:10]
Tia Levings
Or what if I love, like dark matter. Learning about dark matter and expansive universe and sci fi and physics and all of the things. It's like just fascinating fractals. If you've ever seen a time lapse of the planet from space, it looks like the earth is breathing. That just is thrilling. Or like the idea of the divine in our collective. Because. Because it is like, if you've ever been like in a big crowd with that collective effervescence and I'm like, I can feel this being a divine spirit. This feels like something. And that's repeated in nature because of cells and individuals and then, you know, on down so well.
- [58:45]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And I'm a metal vocalist, so I've definitely had moments with the band and you have moments in these shows where something very spiritual is happening and the room shifts and the sound changes and the colors change and. And there is no other explanation than there is some kind of divine otherworldly experience happening with all of these people collectively right now.
- [59:06]
Tia Levings
Right.
- [59:07]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Like, I'm not manufacturing, it's just here. And I've been on both ends of that as the performer and as the recipient of it.
- [59:15]
Tia Levings
Yeah. It's also biblical because where two or more are gathered, there am I also. So, like, they're not in conflict with one another?
- [59:23]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yep.
- [59:23]
Tia Levings
And I think that's really.
- [59:24]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
The Bible has given us these little nuggets of truth that we've kind of like skipped over because we built this house that God lives in. And these are the qualities that we've prescribed to it. And we've decided that that's it when it may not even be the tip of the iceberg. And my last question for today, as people are listening to this, but especially women who are in a traditional space, that's maybe not working for them or is Maybe abusive or feels wrong, feels stifling. What would you say to encourage those women who are starting to ask those questions?
- [60:02]
Tia Levings
Yeah, don't feel like it has to be all or nothing. That is the probably biggest thing is that they're scared. If they make one step, they're making all the steps. And nothing in life is that way. Your intuition is very damaged when you're in these environments. So learning to trust yourself again is going to be baby steps and tiny steps and doing little things that feel good on a daily basis. Looking for little joys, little happiness, allowing small questions, making a friend with somebody a little different than you. Like, you can let yourself acclimate to change slowly. You can give yourself permission to metabolize your new information on your own time frame. Something I say, Resist a life of urgency. And that goes for change and healing too. Like we do not heal overnight. Our scars don't just go away one day it's very slowly, those stitches happen. So it's the same thing. And if you're having doubt, doubts, you're right. If you weren't having doubts, everything would be fine. So I would trust those doubts completely. And you are in charge of your pace. Nobody should rush you, Nobody should manufacture or prescribe changes for you. Those are actually red flags of another high control source. So trust yourself. And I think way leads to way. So one little step will lead to another one.
- [61:17]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
Yeah.
- [61:18]
Tia Levings
And then. And so on.
- [61:20]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And of course everyone who's listening to this. I cannot recommend Tia Leving's book, the well Trained Wife. Enough. I read it in one sitting, sitting on the couch crying and wanting to hug her and wanting to call her and immediately messaged her. And thank you so much for being part of the show today. It means so much and I'm so thankful for voices like yours because it is voices like yours that freed me because. Because those voices were starting to come out and get loud. And I have a lot of hope that we are still gonna turn the ship in a positive direction. That it's gonna get a little spicy here for a second, but that ultimately we're all gonna grow together is what my belief is.
- [62:00]
Tia Levings
Unsustainable situations don't sustain. And right now we are holding a very unsustainable situation. So something's gonna pop and we're okay, we're strong, we can handle this.
- [62:11]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
And where online and on social media can everybody find you?
- [62:14]
Tia Levings
Yeah. So I'm Levings writer on all the platforms. My substack is tlevings.substack.com where I deconstruct fundamentalism on the daily, you know, like, what's going on in our lives. My book is available anywhere books are sold.
- [62:28]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
All right, well, thank you so much. Thank you for being here.
- [62:31]
Tia Levings
Yeah, thank you so much.
- [62:33]
Host (possibly Caroline Livings)
I hope you all enjoyed today. I hope you're a little bit inspired in today's current environment that this is not the end. I truly believe it's the new beginning, that there's a beginning of healing and change that's on the way. But it is really important that we understand the systems that have been built up around us that have reached this critical mass. Thank you for being here. Thank you for being part of this community. As always, Patreon users get early episodes as well as bonus releases. So sign up in the show notes. Sign up for my email list in case Meta ever vanishes. It's the way to stay in touch. Hopefully I'll be traveling to you soon, coming this summer with some special shows, shows. And thank you for joining me on Flipping Tables.