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- [00:01]
A
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A
You've probably seen some of her videos on Instagram. Really adorable lady walks in front of the camera with her cup of tea and says, oh hey, did you know? And then gives you a bunch of education on things maybe you didn't know about organized religion, how we got the Bible, Christian nationalism, and she's here to talk with us today. Crystal dawn is a writer and content creator shedding light on the patriarchal systems of harm within evangelic culture. Her experience growing up as a pastor's daughter as well as her own deconstruction journey give her a unique lens, one that she blends with research and history to give language to many people. Experience in coming out of those spaces what many people are experiencing right now. She is currently at work on her first book that will be coming out in 2027. So very excited to have her here. This is going to be a day for those of you that grew up in these moments. We're going to sit in some nostalgia. We're going to talk about the Left behind series and Veggie Tales and where we were raised and how these movements began, but also what it looks like as a real person to challenge everything that you've ever believed, everything that's ever defined you, and to come out on the other side a better, happier, more whole, more fulfilled person. Crystal dawn today with me on flipping tables. Hi Crystal, welcome to Flipping Tables. Thank you for coming. Hi.
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B
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited.
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A
This has been one that you're one of the people that. Many of my followers on Instagram have been like, when are you guys going to collaborate? And I'm like, I've heard it too. I'm so in. I'm so in. And I, I. You did a video the other day talking about the steps of deconstruction, which we will get into the phases of deconstruction, because this is a researched thing now.
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B
Yes.
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A
But when you. You showed, like, visual assistance of what your childhood looked like, and I was like, oh, left behind series, VeggieTales. So we're going to start with nostalgia. I would love to know where you were born, where you grew up, and, like, give me, like, what does this evangelical, like, 90s early aughts life look like for you?
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B
Yes.
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A
Okay.
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B
I was born in 1986 in the Midwest. I'm from Minnesota. I was born into a very evangelical family. My dad was actually a past. So for most of my childhood, he was either a. Either youth pastor, assistant pastor, or senior pastor. And so my childhood was all, like you said, veggie tales. It was. I went to the private Christian school, so I wore the uniforms. And we were in the curriculum, the ACE curriculum, which was accelerated Christian education, which was. I mean, it trained you to be a good Christian. Even the math problems were like Bible problems. There was no science. I mean, it taught that, you know, God created the world in six days. No, evolution taught you how to be apologist for that. And it was worship music on all the time. The Newsboys. Toby Mack, Amy Grant. I don't know Toby Mack, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith.
- [04:21]
A
The Newsboys was my first concert. So. So, like, let's put that out there. Newsboys was the. Was the banger. That was the one.
- [04:27]
B
Yes, yes. And then it got into some of the really traumatizing things, which some people were like, man, you gotta give a trigger warning before you put some of this stuff on, like the Left behind series. And she said, yes. Oh, God, that book. That book. Actually, I was gifted by my parents the same year, so I told you. I went to private Christian school. Then I was homeschooled for a few years. And then finally in sixth grade, I got to go to public school. And that was when I was 13. And that was right when that book came out. And I read that book right before, like, my first experience in public school. So now it went from the terrifying, like, you're gonna get Separated from your family with the second coming of Christ. And you're gonna get left behind if you're a sinner. But now you also have to be prepared if you're going to public school to have a gun to your head. And you have to be prepared to say yes and die, you know?
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A
Yeah. Cause it's your job to die if that happens to you.
- [05:26]
B
Absolutely.
- [05:26]
A
And what an insane. Oh, God, that was such an insane period of time. Like, because it was. It was. She said yes. And like, how that was weaponized. And then we find out later that that didn't actually happen at all. It didn't even happen. Like, it didn't play out that way. But then it was right before, like, the. The I Kiss Dating Goodbye was right then.
- [05:45]
B
At that time, the purity culture.
- [05:46]
A
The purity culture hit really hard. What was the other book? There was another one, True Love Waits. That was the other one. And those all hit at the same time. And I think I dodged the bullet a little bit with those books, at least, because I was just a little too young when they came out. Like, I still read them and they were gifted to me. I'm like, why is it, you know, like a 9, 10 year old, or I might have even been younger than that. Why am I reading this? Like, I'm not dating right now. This is not. But it was this whole idea of, like, you've gotta get prepared for your future husband. You gotta do it, gotta do it. And I think everyone I know that was born from, like, 1984 to 1997 and grew up in this. In this evangelicalism. I think all of us had Rapture Nightmares from the Left behind series.
- [06:34]
B
I don't. I don't remember ever sleeping.
- [06:37]
A
Yeah, I was so nervous and I was like. I would get up sometimes in the middle of the night and, like, walk upstairs to make sure that my family wasn't gone.
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B
Still there.
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A
Yeah.
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B
Yes. Oh, I just got goosebumps. Literally. I would do that too. Like, everything. Everything in my body, like, was terrified that it was going to happen. I remember asking my dad questions like, what are the signs again? How do we know when it's going to happen? And. And then. But then also simultaneously hearing the people in my community talk about, I hope I'm alive when it happens. And, like, for some reason you were supposed to be excited for it, but all I felt was terrified about it. So it was.
- [07:12]
A
And then I feel like it was a coming of age thing too, because, you know. And did your family ever put you into, like, any of the focus on the family stuff as well.
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B
I. I feel like I was a little bit removed from all of that because I didn't know that's what was going on. So it's, it's. I. When I think about it and I research it now as an adult, I go back and I recognize where that took place in, like, families around me. I still grew up in a. In a very loving home. That was a more emotionally, I think, present for me. I didn't get beat with wooden spoons, but I did get spanked. There I was around people who were like, almost. They would almost, like, say it as, like, I'm the strong one. Like, I spank my kids. I'm not afraid to spank my kids. Like, that was like a badge of honor. A badge of honor. Like, I'm the authority in my house. I'm not afraid to spank my kids. Like, that's the kind of talk that I definitely grew up around. But the focus on the family specifically, I don't remember being a super highlighted part, but I know it affected my childhood for sure.
- [08:17]
A
Yeah, I was definitely. I was a. We were a wooden spoon family. My dad called it the spoon of inspiration. And it was. It was like a. A bragging, right? And like, almost a joke. And it was so traumatizing for all of us. And it was such a weird transition. And I don't know if you felt this way, but you go from like, Veggie Tales, and I don't know if you ever had, like, there was, like, Salty, the Singing Songbook, and like, all these other things. And there was an adventure series, too. I can't remember what it was called. And then you hit this left behind moment, which is such a pivot. And it's like, left behind. She said, yes, I kiss, dating goodbye. All happened at the same time. So you're in public school for high school, kind of as that is all hitting, like, right before and during. So how does that affect, you know, public school for you, but also your environment? Because now you're in public school. You're not just in Christian private schools. I went to private schools except for one year my whole life. So I only had one form of curriculum. And it was just like you said, there wasn't any science. It was. I always had a Bible class. It was creation only. Even the math problems were scriptural. And that was my whole education experience, from kindergarten to college graduation. I had one year that wasn't that. And so how does that shift for you in high school now that you're in this public school setting.
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B
Yeah, that was high school was probably the biggest crack for me. If we talk about deconstruction, and I
- [09:43]
A
was like, I was going to ask you what your crack was so we can work that into this question. What was your crack?
- [09:48]
B
Yeah. Yeah. So finally entering into public school in the sixth grade, I started to have those little moments of cognitive dissonance where I had grown up in this bubble, but now I'm in public school and I'm coming from this bubble that basically taught you, like, were you taught too, that anybody who isn't Christian, doesn't have morals, doesn't know how to be a kind person, doesn't know, like, they're the
- [10:12]
A
bad guys because they don't have the Christian God?
- [10:14]
B
Yes, yes, absolutely. It's like you are the ones who were the chosen ones. You know what's best. And anybody outside is just gonna try to manipulate you and, you know, lead you astray kind of a thing, as well as the voices in your own head. All of it was gonna lead us astray.
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A
Right.
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B
But so I started to kind of have those moments of cognitive dissonance when realizing that, like, wow, the people that I'm actually becoming friends with don't even go to church. So, like, how can I even imagine these people, like, are gonna go to hell? It was those little, little tiny things. But then when I got to high school, I. I had lived so much in fear my whole entire life. And it wasn't because of necessarily even the home I grew up in. It was the culture that I grew up in. I was constantly afraid of making the wrong move. I needed to be the good girl. And if I did something wrong, like, I was gon go to hell and burn for eternity. My soul was on the line, like, all the time. Every decision, every little decision. And even praying, like, I was afraid that I was going to be praying and like, Satan would hear me and learn my deepest thoughts.
- [11:15]
A
And like, I would pray only in my head because I was afraid Satan would hear me. You just unlocked a core memory that I remember. I would only pray silently at night because I didn't want Satan to hear what I was afraid of.
- [11:31]
B
Makes total sense. But no, it was high school where finally I was like, there was this buildup of pressure of, like, I don't want to be afraid anymore. And so I finally decided, like, I'm just going to stop thinking about things 20,000 times over before I even say anything. And I, like, almost entered into this, like, I'm just going to try to live for A little while. And see, that's when I'm like, I'm going to go on roller coasters and I'm like, going to be a little. A little bit.
- [11:59]
A
I'm gonna have fun. God forbid. Yes.
- [12:01]
B
God forbid. And I started to date. And because of growing up, I've had to do a lot of unpacking of the purity culture. But because of growing up in such that purity culture context, I mean, at 13, I had to sign a contract to God that I was gonna save myself for marriage. I had a purity ring and everything. We had this framed, you know, Crystal was 13, signed contract to God that she was gonna save herself for marriage. And my mom would tell me, like, if you have sex before marriage, Because I directly asked her what happens? Like, what happens if you actually have sex before marriage? You're broken. You're broken.
- [12:35]
A
You're worthless. They had like, the. The used paper towel analogy. Chewed gum, used car. Like, women are just objects. Right. And so the guy wants the brand new car. You're not a human. You're still an object, but you're a brand new object. Yes, but if you. If you let someone touch you, then you're a used object, but still an object. And I was 13 too, where I got my purity jewelry. My dad's thing was all the girls in the family could get their ears pierced at 13. He would give you an earring jewelry set. But we had to sign the purity contract to him and God because it was his job to give us away in marriage.
- [13:11]
B
Barf.
- [13:11]
A
Yeah. It's so gross when you actually break. When you actually break it down into, like, what is actually being communicated by these things. And it is so disgusting. And it's very pedophilic and it's very incestuous. It is so disgusting. And I. And. But I am glad, I mean, I'm at least glad that, like, you asked your mom that direct question. Because, like, in my house, you could. You just couldn't say anything about it. Like, you couldn't say anything. You couldn't ask, you couldn't. Like, mum's the word. Abstinence is the only option. And also it creates this environment. This was something that dropped in for me. And we're gonna deep dive on purity culture here in a second. But something that dropped in for me. Unpack that. Was that the movement. Functionally doesn't believe in consent for women. You can't consent. Yes. When you're unmarried because your body's not yours, it's your husband. You also can't say no Once you're married, because now your body's owned by your husband.
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B
Yep.
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A
And so it's an entire movement built on women not having consent. And when that hit me, I was like, oh, yeah. So as you start dating in high school, like, what starts to change?
- [14:16]
B
The. So it going from the. The culture of that of like, sex is bad, but then also getting the narrative in like the early 2000s in high school, where everything is over sexualized. And I mean, girls, children are very sexualized. And also I'm hearing the narrative of you're a good girlfriend if you're sexual. If you're. If you're giving your boyfriend sex, you're like top tier girlfriend, you know? And so it was my idea. So I'm in a relationship. I'm 15 years old. So young and so young. I look back and I'm like, I was a baby and I started becoming sexually active. And my parents could tell something was different about me because I was having an internal battle about it. I was like, I'm being a rebel. I'm being my own person. I'm independent. But what did I just do? And they could tell. And I. I was 16 at this point. So I had gotten through a few months and I was 16 at this point. They called me into my dad's home office and they sat me down and they said, we know. And they. I kept saying, like, what? What do you know? And they're like, we know, we know, we know. And I was like, what do you know? And finally I'm like, they know. I might as well just say it and admit it.
- [15:37]
A
They trapped you, didn't they?
- [15:38]
B
They literally trapped me.
- [15:40]
A
They didn't know.
- [15:41]
B
Nope, they didn't know. They just knew that, like, something was going on with me. And so I said, I told them. I said I even knew the date. I was like, it was February, something, something. And they were like, well, we didn't know it was that. And they called in my younger brother and they said, you have to tell your brother. Oh, God, my brother.
- [16:00]
A
Come on.
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B
No, literally. No, literally. I was so. I'm the oldest of four and they. They only made me tell my younger brother because of, like, age appropriate. My two other younger siblings are much younger. Definitely struggled with it. He told me I ruined his life. What? And then. Yeah, he has since apologized for that.
- [16:19]
A
Yeah, he's like, I didn't. Well, again, he's also in the. In this environment. And I've seen so many instances where, like, daughters are, like, pulled in front of the church and shamed and they have to, like, confess to the church. The boys never. Never, ever, ever. I have never heard of that happening ever. Not one time. Even if a man's having an affair or if, you know, a son lost his virginity, Never. But the women will literally be drug in front of the congregation and be forced to confess. It's so. But like, to tell why. Why does your brother need to know?
- [16:49]
B
He doesn't need to know. Now that I know that now, I'm like, that was messed up. Then it was a few days after that, I recognized that my grandparents, we all lived in the same house. I grew up also living in the same house as my grandparents. And I'm like, my grandma, my grandpa are even acting different. I could feel every room that I walked in. Like, there was just this weird feeling. And I asked my parents, I said, do grandma and grandpa know? They're like, yep. We talked to them about it. And then I said, who else knows? Like. Cause I wanted to know, like, what rooms? What rooms? Oh, even that, like, feeling of like, oh, my God, that. What rooms am I safe in? Like, what rooms? Don't know. This part of me, like, this is so vulnerable and personal. So personal. And at that point, like, all I could feel was shame around it. And they told me all of my aunts and uncles knew, my cousins knew, even my cousins who were missionaries in Mexico knew. And then also, so my dad was obviously a leader of a congregation. It was small, but it was still his church. And they felt like they needed to be transparent about what was going on in their life. And so I also found out that the whole church knew, but, like, nobody was talking about it, but everybody knew.
- [18:07]
A
That is so humiliating.
- [18:09]
B
It was.
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A
Yeah.
- [18:10]
B
The amount of shame I had, I carried around from then. And, like, I. I slowly started to really separate myself and try to, like, come up with reasons not to go to church, not to attend, not to go to family dinners, not to do the. I really started to isolate because, of course you would.
- [18:25]
A
You're not safe anywhere.
- [18:26]
B
Exactly. But all I felt was shame. I was like, I ruined my family. That's what I felt. Because, like, that's so insane it there. My parents needed people to pray with them because they were going through things. And I realized that they were doing the best that they could because that's the culture they grew up in. But it really didn't, I think, hit them that they probably shouldn't have done that until I grew very depressed because my safe space was not home anymore. And it was actually at school where I could just be normal. And they noticed how isolated I was becoming. I remember like just laying on the floor in my room, staring at the ceiling, like, I don't even want to watch tv, like I deserve nothing. And it turned into like this self hatred. And they got me thankfully into therapy that wasn't religious because that's what our insurance would cover. And it was in that setting where I was able to tell a grown adult what I was feeling and what I was going through and have that grown adult actually look me in the eyes and say, what your parents did was wrong. They should not have done that. And that was where that really massive crack kind of happened for me, where I recognized that adults don't know everything. They make mistakes. And what I have been told was not what I was shown. And it was like from that point on, I didn't trust the community anymore. I felt exiled in a way, but it was like nobody was saying it to my face. They all just treated me different. And so I lost complete trust in the community, in the institution at that point. And even though I still held on to. Because like that was the point where I felt like the people are flawed, but God is still perfect. So it was this like in between phase for many years that I was just like a little bit more removed from it and didn't really know how to call myself a Christian since then.
- [20:32]
A
And then and then so as this goes on and I mean that is such a, like a cataclysmic breach of trust. Absolutely. And such a. Especially for a child to like lose the sense of safety and the sense of comfort. So as you're in this in between space, which I think everybody goes through when you're leaving any kind of really strict religious order, high control group. So when did you start asking more questions? Because a lot of times, you know, on your page you give these amazing educational videos and you talk about, I've seen in your comments, responding to people. I did a lot of research and I read these and here's a good resource for this. So when did that phase of your journey really start?
- [21:12]
B
Yeah, once I got into college, I. It was like I was allowing myself to be curious and not have my parents be my go to. And so I started to read other books, even like the Da Vinci Code. Like something went whoa. Like for me reading the Da Vinci Code. And I took a world religions class and my major in college was psychology and behavioral sciences. And I started to understand kind of the way that our brains work and it helped me a little bit In a way understand that, like, the way that I was raised was actually like not teaching me to think for myself.
- [21:56]
A
And.
- [21:56]
B
And the biggest, I think pivot didn't even happen until 2019. It's almost like those, all those years in between 16 and well into my adult years that I was kind of in this like mini phase of curiosity but didn't really dive in. And 2019, I, after becoming a mom, I started to notice that I needed to pour back into myself and figure out who I was now, because I felt like I kind of lost who I was as an individual. When you become a mom and that's your whole life, and that's what I mean, I thought was expected of me, right? So I became a wife and a mother and I was like, I'm doing all these things, yet I am not fulfilled. I feel like I have just disappeared. I feel like I've just erased my being. So why am I so unfulfilled, doing all the things that were expected of me and I don't feel like I'm happy. And so I started to get involved with actors, actual groups of women that were doing personal development. I got into fitness and doing fitness courses online and meeting with groups of women. And they were like reading all these books, and these books were personal development and ones that would teach you to trust yourself and listen to your intuition and things like that. And that was a big one for me in 2019 because I was finally getting permission to have to question why I was putting my authority and my moral compass and my trust into everything outside of me when that's that all that was doing was hurting me and bring it back here and then learn how to trust myself. Because growing up in those spaces, you learn nothing about trusting yourself. It's all lean, not on your own understanding. You're going to get led astray if you listen to the voice in your head. And if you trust yourself, you know you're a sinner. So you're just gonna, you're gonna be led astray if you trust yourself. And that was a very different narrative that I've grown up in. And so after 2:19 and that started to happen, I kind of found myself in more spiritual spaces that were more earth based, more bringing me back into my body, learning how to listen to my body, learning, learning what my intuition even sounds like, what my instincts are. And it was like five years into that, it was only about a year and a half ago, where I was actually feeling like I want some answers to the questions that I never got Answers for. And I pulled the Bible out from a box in my basement. It literally sat on my desk for days because I was scared that I was somehow going to get manipulated again. Yeah, I like side eyed it for quite a few days. Like, do I really want to do this? Like, why would I do. Why am I going to do this? But it wasn't until I started to read it from a different perspective with critical thinking skills and notice like even within the first two pages how much it contradicts itself that I was like,
- [25:01]
A
holy shit, what is going on?
- [25:04]
B
Yeah, I'm like, okay, this is super interesting and this is going to be helpful. And so that's when I got almost addicted to trying to find answers to things and realizing how led astray we were or I was being born into that system.
- [25:24]
A
And it's, it's one of those things. I love what you said about intuition because it really is demonized. Like, don't trust yourself. Don't listen to your intuition. One of the biggest phases of my deconstruction was learning to distinguish between what was my voice on the inside and what was someone else's voice. I'm like, is that mine or was that given to me by someone else? And the same with the whole movement. And this is what I really try to center even the content on my page around is it shouldn't be teaching you what to think, it should be teaching you how to think. And we can see how education and external. One of the reasons that especially white Christian nationalism demonizes education so much is because when you learn how to think, a lot of these really dogmatic arguments start to fall apart when you get really educated on church history. And this is who this person was and this is what was happening this moment. And this was how this book was written. There's a lot of issues that pop up that have to be answered. And I tell people all the time that the truth is never afraid of scrutiny. And if you are in a movement that doesn't allow you to ask questions, you need to get out of that movement. That is a dogmatic belief. That's not something that's genuine and sincere, but it's, it is such a journey. I remember and this was my, my story about meeting feminists because growing up, feminists were the devil, right? Like Democrats are the devil. Feminists, education, colleges, like the whole, all the talking points now, always the devil. But feminists especially, they had this like very special vitriol for feminists. And when I met feminists for the first time, I didn't realize that I had. I didn't know that that's what they were. What stood out to me about this group of women was that they asked questions to me. They were the first people in my whole life who said, well, what do you want to do?
- [27:16]
B
Yeah.
- [27:17]
A
And I didn't have an answer for them because no one had ever asked me what I wanted to do. I was told what my life would look like and what I would do and how I would dress and what I would look like and who I would marry and how that family would play out. And it had never occurred to me that I had any choice in the matter. Like, I knew when I was 12, I didn't want kids. I knew that, but I didn't think that that was a choice. It wasn't until I was 27 that a mom of two looks at me and she's like, you know, it's okay if you don't want kids. I'm like, what do you mean, it's okay? Everybody has to have kids. She's like, no, you don't. And it was the first time I was given choice. And I became a feminist because I started believing women should have choices, too. And I didn't know that I had crossed over to the dark side.
- [28:02]
B
The dark side, right.
- [28:06]
A
Luke, I am your f. But I also love. I think I was thinking about this yesterday. I love what you said about I became a wife and a mother, and I lost myself in it, but I wasn't fulfilled. Because that is such a one. A brave thing to say. Culturally, even outside of religion, there's so much put on women that once you have children or once you're married, that's your identity. That's who you are.
- [28:29]
B
You should be grateful.
- [28:30]
A
Yeah. You should willingly sacrifice your individuality on the altar of motherhood, which is why so many mothers get so burnt out and so depression, because you're still a unique person. But there is also this idea within these high control groups that once you're married and have kids, this is all you're gonna do. This is gonna be so fulfilling for you, and you're gonna stay home, and you're gonna be a homemaker, and you are gonna be so happy. But they say this to all women as if women aren't unique individuals, because they don't believe that they are. And so when you're in that journey. So you grew up kind of with this belief that like. Like, everything's supposed to be so fulfilling when I get to this point. What did you discover kind of in that dark space of I'm not fulfilled. Like, what were some of your fears and some of your doubts? And what did you discover in that journey of how do I stay crystal and be mom? Chronic migraine 15 or more headache days a month, each lasting 4 hours or more can make me feel like a spectator in my own life. Botox Onobotulinum toxin a prevents headaches in adults with chronic migraine. It's not for those with 14 or fewer headache days a month. It's the number one prescribed branded chronic migraine preventive treatment prescription Botox is injected by your doctor. Effects of Botox may spread hours to weeks after injection, causing serious symptoms. Alert your doctor right away as difficulty swallowing, speaking, breathing, eye problems or muscle weakness can be signs of a life threatening condition. Patients with these conditions before injection are at highest risk. Side effects may include allergic reactions, neck and injection site pain, fatigue and headache. Headache Allergic reactions can include rash, welts, asthma symptoms and dizziness. Don't receive Botox if there's a skin infection. Tell your doctor your medical history, muscle or nerve conditions including als, Lou Gehrig's disease, Myasthenia gravis or Lambert Eaton syndrome and medications including botulinum toxins, as these may increase the risk of serious side effects. Why wait? Ask your doctor. Visit botoxchronicmigraine.com or call 1-844-botox to learn more. There's a new way to Sweetgreen Meet Wraps Handheld, hearty and made for life on the move. With bold, chef crafted flavors, fresh ingredients and over 40 grams of protein, they're built to satisfy without slowing you down. Try wraps today in the app or@order.sweetgreen.com available at all participating locations. You can't reason with the sun. Trust us, we've tried. This summer, it's time to put that angry ball of fire on mute. Columbia's OmniShadow Tech technology is engineered to protect you from the sun's harsh rays that can burn and damage your skin. The sun is relentless, but so is our gear. Level up your summer@columbia.com to spend more time outside and less time slathering on aloe lotion. You're welcome, Columbia. Engineered for whatever.
- [31:26]
B
I think the the first the feeling that I was having was a lot of guilt because I'm like, I'm, I'm holding this beautiful baby. I love it so much. Like, how, how do I feel this? Like, why do I feel so unhappy? Like, I feel guilty for not being happy, I feel guilty for not feeling fulfilled and I It was a lot of like shaming myself over that. Like that I'm. There must be something wrong with me. Why, why am I so selfish? And when I started to actually get into spaces to work on my health and my fitness, so I kind of like zeroed in on that. I hyper fixated on my health and my fitness because it was also like I was treating my body well. So like that was accepted. I was treating my body well. But in those spaces there were mostly women who also were like empowering. It was somewhat of a feminist energy to it as well. And it was, you know, you get to be fulfilled in other things that are not just wife and mother. And it was like I was finally in a community that cared also what I wanted. And it was giving me permission to want more, something more. I don't think I necessarily can pinpoint the moment where I was like, I get to be this and this. But it was definitely an evolution of realizing that this isn't all there is. So if I'm not fulfilled, it's not because I didn't want that and I don't want that. It's because there is a part missing and I just need to find that. And it was obviously a journey and I did a lot of work around that self work and then also understand a lot of shadow work trying to understand why I felt so guilty around it. And going back to realizing that the only thing I was ever really praised for as a child or growing up was she's so good with kids, she's gonna be a great mom. And learning how to redefine success I think was a big one for me too is understanding that I get to decide what that is. Being a successful person and giving myself permission to want more for myself and having that not be selfish, but redefining it from myself again, a lot of like the, you don't have to go along with, with the crowd all the time. Like permission to create my own future for what I want. And that is okay.
- [34:01]
A
Yeah. And I love the overlap of cause fitness was a big part of my journey too. And I think, and we're gonna, in the next segment we're gonna talk more about like kind of earth based spirituality. Cause that's a big part of my journey too. But one of the things with fitness and health is there is, I think one of the reasons that works so well in deconstruction is because it's a reclamation of your body. Yes, totally. And if you can get out of your, out of your nervous system, if you can get out of fight or flight. If you can start to anchor into your body, not only does movement process trauma, like we know that now that your body stores it, movement helps move it, but also it's a reclamation of your body. And as you start to. I found in my journey with fitness that when I started to reclaim my body, I was able to claim other parts of my life. It gave me the pathway to say, okay, like first it was my body. It's like, this is mine, this is mine. It doesn't belong to a future husband, it doesn't belong to the church, it doesn't belong to anyone else. It's mine. Once I could do that, then I could ask questions of like, well, well, what do I want? What kind of career do I want? What kind of foods do I like? How do I want to dress? Because. But it started with my body first, which I think is also tied to that whole reconnection process. Because in these groups, again, you are taught to dissociate from your own intuition, from your own gut instinct, which leads to you living inauthentically. It leads to you following along to get along. And it creates this huge disconnect between your body and your brain. And I think fitness is an amazing avenue to reconnect that. And so my question for you, when you talked about kind of Earth based spirituality, which is really built around nature, around regulating your central nervous system, there's a lot of breath work typically included. And I've mentioned this on the podcast before, plant medicine I've worked with plant medicine is a big part of that. How did you start to work your way into that form of spirituality? Which, by the way, for anyone listening is very, very ancient. I mean, there's obviously we still have South American tribes that still actively practice African tribes, but there's Celtic history here, Nordic history, Germanic history. This is really the type of medicine and spirituality that predates Abrahamic religions. And so how did you kind of enter into that space and what were some of the big breakthroughs or the things that you were like, I can't believe this is real. I would love to hear some of your journey on this.
- [36:30]
B
That, oh, I feel like there's so many layers. Personally for me, being outside and just like in nature has always kind of calmed my nervous system, helps my brain shut down. I'm a very like mental buzz, all the time person. And. But being outside and not having buzzy, that buzzy feeling, that constant overstimulation has always kind of brought me back into my body rather than always being disassociated I. I feel like even growing up in, in Christianity, it really teaches you how to disassociate. And something about being in nature gets us back into our body and present. And that was huge for me. And I believe that nature can teach us more about ourselves than sometimes even reading books and things like that. Like, it just helps you get into your body, slow down and pay attention. But when I started to learn my own heritage, my lineage, I had grown up asking even my grandparents, like, what are we? Like, where did we come from? And nobody really knew. It's. It was so bizarre. It was like, ah, maybe a little bit of this, a little bit of this. I'm like, how is. How does nobody know where we came from?
- [37:44]
A
What do you mean you don't know?
- [37:47]
B
How does, how does that happen? How do you just like, wasn't it just like, maybe even your own parents that were like, possibly the first people to come here? Especially when you realize that, like, if you're white, your lineage isn't from this land. And so, like, when did we come here? Why did we come here? What's our heritage? And so I did one of those DNA tests which actually, like, tells you where you're from. And so once I got answers of, like, where I'm from, like, the Germanic side of things, lots of different ones, but that was the prominent one. And I wanted to start to understand, like, maybe what my ancestors used to do. And obviously you had to go back, way, way back, before anything was colonized, even in that area, and try to understand what they believed. And I started to kind of piece together little things. And I'm like, wow. Like, I was interested in that. I'm curious about that. They used to see, like, oak groves and oak trees as churches in their different words and languages. And then they, you know, you have to go down the rabbit hole of the runes and, and what, bone casting and things like that. But then also when you get into. When I got into understanding the elements and how that is literally part of our body as well, you realize that you are nature. You're not separate from nature, you're a part of nature. And that even just talking about it gives me goosebumps because that's. It makes you feel like you are a part of something much bigger. And then that's a whole nother rabbit hole that you get to go down. But the elements, for me, a big one that helped me feel less alone and a part of something bigger. And it helps you understand how you're connected to everything.
- [39:32]
A
And there's this amazing transition that happens when you reconnect that way of getting to be part of the world, and it changes your perspective on. You know, I think one of. One of the pitfalls that I see of, like, especially Christianity as we understand it today is there's this idea that nothing here matters because it's all about what happens after you die. It's all about nothing here matter. It creates this. This lack of stewardship, this lack of accountability, this lack of responsibility, this. This idea of, well, it doesn't matter what happens because, you know, when I die, I'm going to heaven. Instead of looking at your neighborhood and saying, how do I. How do I leave a better world behind for these children? Or looking at things like national parks, natural resources, climate change, and saying, wait a minute, I'm part of this world too. My children are part of this world, and I want to be a good steward of it. That there becomes this disconnect that allow for a lack of accountability and kind of this using and this consumption of resources without any thought to preservation and honor. And I had a very. I love. I love this.
- [40:40]
B
We're so excited.
- [40:41]
A
We need to have a glass of wine and do, like, an evening special where we just. Where we just talk about all the woo woo stuff. I can tell you that there is a large percentage of my followers that would attend, like, a wine night with us where we talk about all the woo woo things I'm in. But I had something similar. But I grew up where I knew that my family was French and German and Norwegian. I knew that part. I didn't know very much about the history, but I knew the region that my grandmother's family was from. And I did the same thing. I did a DNA test. And it'll bring you down to the county that they think you're from. And I did the same thing especially. I've always felt very connected to my Celtic ancestry, which is, of course connected to my Norwegian ancestry. Cause Vikings and. And learning about their practices and how they viewed nature and what they did as a community. How you had these amazing communities where there was both female and male spiritual leaders who countered each other and led in different ways, and that women were traditionally these healers and they were medicine and they did, you know, midwifery and all of these things. They were also both birth doulas and death doulas and this amazing community that was very egalitarian that was created around these beliefs. And it was all about honoring the land and honoring each other as an extension of the Land. And you see that even one of my favorite Celtic practices is actually around. I'm not a hunter, but it's around hunting, where they would hunt and they would have a prayer and a ceremony after a kill to honor the animal's sacrifice. And it was this beautiful relationship of I have to eat, then this is part of the cycle in the world. But I want to honor and thank you for the energy that you're gonna gift to me. And we see that in Native American indigenous tribes too. These kind of ceremonies and prayers around honoring. And there's just this beautiful element. It's not a hierarchy. It's not about power, it's not about hoarding, it's about community. And it's about. And it's about honor and joy and rest and this beautiful. It was such a foreign concept that people could practice spirituality that way because of growing up in such a rigid hierarchical system. And that was the first time that I learned that women hadn't always been like a second class citizen or subjugated. That. That really started to originate with the Abrahamic religions and post agricultural revolution. But it is, there's something about. And if you're someone who's deconstructing and you're listening to this and you're like, I don't even know where to start with this. One of the things I would say is find out as much as you can about your heritage and where they came from and their practices. Learn about your ancestors. You're gonna find things that, like, even now talking about it, I can feel like my sternum heat up. You're gonna find things that you connect with. You're like, I've always connected with that and I didn't know that. That's why connecting with those things is just another path to recon to your body and to your intuition and to your own mind. And it really, really is. They knew so much that we kind of lost because land ownership and money and inheritance became part of the equation.
- [44:01]
B
Yeah.
- [44:02]
A
And so like, as you kind of. What do you think was the hardest thing for. As you're learning all this and you're reading books now and you're studying your history, what was the hardest thing to unpack from growing up that way?
- [44:18]
B
Definitely the, the patriarchal structure that like you're raised in, it's such a. It's, it's like never ending. I feel like I'll never be done really fully unpacking that like the centering the men and everything like that. Like you're. I grew up really like with my dad on a pedestal, especially with him being a pastor, he wasn't just on a pedestal in my own home. He was a pedest in church. And that, like, centering that, it was always. And he was used to that. He did it. He held it with grace as much as you can. But, like, he was used to being the center of things. And when he wasn't the center of things, he really, really crumbled. His mental health took a turn when I was, I want to say, in my early 30s. I'm 39 now. And when that started to crumble, he. It was. He. He was. He went from being the person that I looked up to to now he is, like, almost abusing me emotionally. And I was like, this is not safe. Like, the way that he was treating me, he was. He turned into somebody who abused alcohol, and he didn't know how to navigate a lot of things. He wasn't. He didn't grow up with those kinds of tools. And he grew up in. He was a baby boomer. He grew up in an era where like, like, you know, men don't cry and things like that. And he was a very sensitive person. And so going through that, I also, at one point, I actually realized through therapy that I needed to have boundaries, and I got to have boundaries. I get to have boundaries. I get to say, you can't do that. Rather than just constantly self abandoning and self sacrificing my own mental state because he needed me. And so I got to the place where I felt strong enough to put a boundary up, and I separated myself from him. And when I did that, it was just like a month or so in he died.
- [46:26]
A
Whoa.
- [46:27]
B
And so, yeah, that's a lot then to pack. And that was when I was actually in the grief stage of deconstruction myself. And so I wasn't just, like, losing my foundation, my belief system, my community, my sense of self and identity and grieving that. But then also, like, also feeling guilty and grieving my dad. And that's when a lot was kind of crumbling. That was like the massive, like, everything just crumbled at that point. And that I think I sat in for maybe two to three years of just, like, trying to unpack everything that I thought was safety, but it wasn't. And it actually set me up for a lot of failure, I think, in life and thinking all the. The patriarchal way and then coming into more of like, the. The healing phases after. After that all happened and realizing that the. The system that I grew up in trained Me to not trust myself and learning how to trust my curiosity and bringing me down all the rabbit holes that actually did bring me healing was realizing that they didn't want me to ask questions because, like, that would have given me answers and it would have brought me out of that. And so, like, the fear of asking questions, the fear of. Of fear. Don't be curious. Don't ask questions. If you're asking questions, you're not being faithful. Like, you have to have blind faith always.
- [48:08]
A
Yeah.
- [48:09]
B
And so giving myself permission to ask those questions was. And then leading me into the anger phase of deconstruction and getting angry. Not just reading the Bible, but then reading other books that gave me answers to what. What actually happened even before there was a patriarchy and realizing there was something before patriarchy and this hierarchical structure and reading books like When God was a Woman and the Chalice and the Blade. Yes. Such amazing. Such amazing information. And I highly recommend books like that because it puts. Puts into perspective that we have been in this patriarchal hierarchy for such a short period of time compared to all of human history. And when you realize that, and you realize that, like, humanity didn't always live like this. Humanity used to see rivers as goddesses and then you could. Then you can piece together things that like, wow, the gods used to be mountains and rivers and planets and earth. And then you start to. Under things about mythology start to click and you're like, what then? Then you get to. To really get into the healing process of recognizing what you feel called towards is not actually dangerous, not actually harmful, not actually demonic. It's actually truth that they didn't want you to find.
- [49:40]
A
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B
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B
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- [50:11]
A
Or a sweet vanilla smooth caramel maybe? Or a white chocolate mocha?
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B
Whichever you choose.
- [50:16]
A
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B
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- [50:20]
A
Well, and it's also like, the more I have learned and expanded and you look at, like, when you really again with nature, you're just like, this is so incredible and so Magical. And if I believe that God is this all encompassing, all power like energy that has like that is in and of everything, then it makes sense why ancient people thought that way when they would look at these majestic things, these magical things to them and say that that right there is God. And it puts into perspective that this, this Abrahamic belief has made God so small. Like God is this all powerful, creative energy, inspiring is in and of all things. And the best we can do is make him some dude. Like, really, that's the best we've got.
- [51:10]
B
Like, he's really narcissistic.
- [51:12]
A
He's some guy, you know, and, and it's interesting because even in, when you, when you look at a lot of the, the artifacts that around like the Old Testament old, and they even drew Yahweh with a penis and I'm like, what are we doing guys? Is that really important right now? Like, he's got a schlong. Like, oh, thank God. I'm so glad that God's well endowed. I'm so glad we cleared that up. How big is it?
- [51:37]
B
Oh my God.
- [51:37]
A
In the picture it's pretty, it's pretty substantial. You know, like could, could be uncomfortable if you're not prepared, you know, like, and it's just, you look at it and it does, it just makes you laugh because you're like, why, why is that there? That doesn't matter. But it is. It's this standard of, you know, we, we've all grown up in this system where. And that's, I think part of this strain that we're feeling culturally between men and women is that people are waking up to this system. The system's not working anymore and there's all this animosity about decentering men. And, and I'll say again, cuz I have a lot of men who listen to this podcast, a lot of men who are learning. And I know that a lot of these can be really like triggering. When we say patriarchy, we don't mean men. We mean the hierarchical structure that puts a few men with a lot of wealth and a lot of power at the top. And they tell you as other men, if you just work hard, you can be just like me while they rip you off and tell you that it's women who are ripping you off. Like, that is the system. It is not built for anybody except for those few men at the top. And they'll give the men a few crumbs, a little bit of power, a little bit of control. Control. But ultimately you're under their thumb.
- [52:49]
B
Too.
- [52:50]
A
And so the goal of matriarchy is not inverting the hierarchy that we have now. It's putting kids and community first.
- [52:57]
B
Yeah.
- [52:57]
A
That's what matriarchy is. And when we say things like decenter men, we don't mean throw them to the wolves and, you know, lock them up. What we mean is that all of the decisions of our life aren't based on that relationship, which in turn benefits you. You. Because when women and men stop decentering or stop centering romantic relationships or start stop centering men, people live more fulfilled lives. They're happier. They chase their dreams, which leads them to meet people that they're more compatible with. They have happier, more successful relationships, long term relationships. Because we've abandoned all this societal pressure of, well, you have to have a man by 23 and you have to do this, and you have to do this. Which is why people end up in such terrible marriages.
- [53:42]
B
Yeah.
- [53:43]
A
Like, what turned me off? And I've. I've never been married. And who knows? I don't. I know.
- [53:49]
B
Don't do it. I'm not.
- [53:50]
A
I'm not really. I'm not really a fan. Not really. Not really a fan. But I also recognize, because this is part of my growth right now, that part of the reason I'm not a fan is because of what I was taught. Marriage was growing up. And because of the marriages I saw, which by and large, with very rare exceptions, sucked, they were terrible. Like, no, I'm not. I'm not gonna be someone's house servant just because he has a penis and I don't. No, that's not gonna happen. No, thank you. Pass. Even when I was nine, I was like, okay, loophole. I'm just not gonna have sex, so then I don't have to get married. Awesome. We're just not doing that. Then, like, at 9, I was thinking that and it was just. But it was just. I. I was like, I'm not doing that. I don't want to be someone's servant. I don't want to have. I don't want to give away my autonomy and my individuality. And I don't think that that's what marriage is supposed to be. That was just the brand that I was taught. But I remember all the women in the church, they were always sad and exhausted. They all hated sex, all of them, because how can you not not? You've been told your whole life that your virginity is the only thing of value that you have. If you lose it, you're worthless. You're a used Car. Now remember, you're still an object either way, but you're a used car now. And it's dirty and it's gross and it's shameful. It's the worst thing you can do. I remember growing up and I would rather tell my dad I accidentally killed somebody, like with my car.
- [55:16]
B
Oh yeah, it was right up there with murder.
- [55:18]
A
Yeah. Than I had had sex and which I was, I was just too afraid as a teenager. Like I was just too scared. I just couldn't. Like I was so afraid of what would happen to me from my parents if that ever happened. I was like, I was afraid of physical violence. And so you grow up in this system and then the night of your wedding you're supposed to flip a switch. You've never done anything before. Now you're supposed to go all the way with this person and now he owns you. Of course women are going to hate sex.
- [55:51]
B
Yeah, it's an obligation.
- [55:52]
A
It's an obligation. It's a chore, it's a mandate, it's a, it's a theft of your body. And a lot of these groups don't believe in marital rape, which is horrific. And we see that with the, the Rape Academy that was just released last week. So many comments are like, well, it's not rape if it's your husband. As if drugging your wife and assaulting her unconscious body isn't the most depraved thing you could possibly do. One of the women, I've been following her on Instagram now now she was with her husband of 16 years when she found out he was doing this to her. And she's like, this is what people told me when I pressed charges. Cuz he's serving a jail sentence now when I press charges. People were like, well I mean it's not like being drugged down an alleyway. It's your husband.
- [56:33]
B
Isn't it worse?
- [56:34]
A
Isn't it so much worse when it's
- [56:36]
B
something supposed to be your safe space like that?
- [56:38]
A
And he.
- [56:39]
B
How are, how's any of us supposed to feel safe?
- [56:41]
A
He was drugging her tea every night, like he would make her cup of tea like a nice husband so that he could. And it's just. But it comes from this, this belief system, this, this, this particular brand of marriage. And I remember listening to women talk and I remember every single woman who was on the older side would say, I love my husband, but when he dies, I'm never getting married again. Which I was like, well that's interesting.
- [57:03]
B
My grandma said that this is so
- [57:05]
A
great, then why does no one want to do it again? And then they all. They all, they all hated sex. And there was so much sexual dysfunction in their marriages is because you've demonized it. You've demonized this beautiful way for humans to connect, and you've made it this gross, dirty, vile thing. And then you expect people to flip a switch the night of their wedding and it just doesn't work like that.
- [57:28]
B
And so many women don't even have orgasms and.
- [57:30]
A
Cause they don't even. And a lot of them don't even know they exist. Yeah, I didn't know what a condom was until I was 23.
- [57:38]
B
A condom? Yeah.
- [57:39]
A
Cause you couldn't talk about that in my family. It was abstinence only. You can't say anything. And again, I only went to Christian Nationalist school, so you weren't getting any form of sex ed. So had I made the decision as a teenager to do something like that, I would have been at so much risk because I didn't know. I didn't know how to protect myself. I didn't know anything about my body. I learned. I learned my anatomy from my college anatomy and physiology class for pre med college. That's when I learned I had no idea, no clue. Like, I had to, like, have a girl in high school explain to me how tampons work because nobody told me
- [58:17]
B
I had to read the box.
- [58:18]
A
Yeah, I didn't know. I didn't know that there's a specific location for that. I didn't know I had. You know, and this lack of education is so dangerous. And it's so sad too.
- [58:28]
B
It's so dangerous.
- [58:29]
A
And I say things like that and people will immediately be like, you're a whore. Hookup culture. I was like, I don't believe in hookup culture either. Like, I believe that intimacy is this beautiful connection that you have to be careful with because it makes you very vulnerable with someone and it's very special and it can cause a lot of harm, both for men and women if you misuse it. But I don't think it's this demonic, dirty thing either. I think that it's special. I think that it's sacred. But it's such a different. I have such a different viewpoint of it now than I did growing up. But I remember I feel so bad for the women I grew up with because they. They never got free. Did you ever get a chance to talk to your parents about what happened in high school?
- [59:13]
B
Oh, yeah. They came into. So after he had told me my therapist had said what they did was wrong. He asked if I felt like I could tell them. And I was like, I don't think I can tell them that. Like I, I don't think I can confront them and tell them just how like wrong. What they did was wrong. And so he, he asked if we could just all sit down with him there.
- [59:37]
A
Oh, that's great.
- [59:39]
B
Yes. No, honestly, he helped me in ways that made me want to be a therapist. That's why I went into psychology in college, is because I was like, you gave me a piece of my voice and power back in that. And so, yeah, we sat down in a therapy session and I was able to tell them and they apologized.
- [59:58]
A
Wow, that's incredible. I mean, that's a big step for people in these movements, especially being a pastor and the pastor's wife is a big thing. And I love. I just want to take a minute to shout out therapists because you really are like saving the world. Because a therapist, even though I only saw her for a few sessions, she was pivotal because. And I want to first, Crystal say, I admire so much that in high school you were able to really identify this cognitive dissonance and start to create this separation. I was so in it. I was so locked in. I was so committed. I was so good at compartmentalizing that these breakthroughs didn't start hitting me until 20.
- [60:37]
B
Well, I think it's the fear. The fear just traps you in it.
- [60:40]
A
Yeah. And it wasn't until 23, like for me, my big crack happened with a 12 year old rape victim was the moment for me where I was like, wait a minute, this, this is wrong. But for me, like I had that not happened, I don't know if I would have escaped it. I was so into the indoctrination. Had I gotten married and had kids in my early 20s, I would have been trapped. I don't know that I would have left the movement. Probably would have in my, maybe my 40s, my 40s or my 50s later, which we see a of lot. A lot. But I wouldn't have had. So I just want to like tell young Crystal, like just, just so much praise for being so brave and being honest enough with yourself to separate. But when I, I lost 90 pounds my sophomore year in high school. And like, that had always been a big issue in my family because being overweight was sin and you have to be beautiful for your husband and all these things. And it was like I was bullied viciously by my family and my dad especially. So I lost £90. But then I fell into an eating disorder. I got so scared of gaining weight, so scared of food. It was the one thing in my life I could control. So my dad took me to, like, a nutritional therapist for a few sessions and sat with her. And he had been so hard on me, both about my weight and then about the eating disorder. And she sitting with me. And I remember the look on her face. Cause I couldn't identify it at the time. And I now can recognize that she was trying not to overreact in front of my dad because she wanted to slap him in the face. And she's like. And she sat with me, and she was just. So. It was just her surprise at how vicious I was with myself, how trapped I was. And she was like, you know, it's a good thing to be concerned about your nutrition. And I remember she's like, you get to make decisions about your body, too. And it was just comments like that where I was like, wait, you get to do that? And it was this little nudge that would play into a series of nudges that changed my life ultimately. And I did get to talk to my dad when I was older about the physical abuse. I never got a chance to really unpack all the other stuff with him because my dad passed away. In a very similar kind of echo of your story, where the day that I realized that I was walking away from the movement, like, because I had been in that limbo of, okay, well, I disagree on these social issues, but I don't think that the movement is the problem. I think it's these specific issues. 2016 rolls around, I'm like, oh, the movement's the problem. But I. The day. The day that I was like, I have to sit down with dad and tell him I'm out and let him disown me, which is very likely what he would have done. He died that night.
- [63:20]
B
Day. Wow.
- [63:21]
A
Yeah. The day that I decided. So that conversation never happened. And I don't feel guilt in that sense, but I. It. It leaves a lot of unanswered questions, you know, around that. And so as you're in this space right now, like, with what's going on in the world around us, and we're watching Christian nationalism really get weaponized. And we grew up in all of this language. None of this stuff is surprising to us. The anti abortion, the homophobia, the Islamophobia.
- [63:50]
B
It was so normalized.
- [63:51]
A
It was so normalized. This is the language we grew up in. And that's in part to say that it is not new. So what is kind of your feeling around what's happening now regarding how Christianity is being weaponized? And what is your hope in the moment as we're watching this unfold?
- [64:11]
B
My feeling is rage, which actually is. I think it's the third stage in studies of deconstruction is like there's the crack, then there's the grief, and then you end up in this place of anger and it finally gives grief a place to go. And this anger brings clarity and that clarity of recognizing how horrible things are and that you are complicit in it because you were conditioned to be and you didn't really know better. And the anger and the guilt that comes along with that, all of it just, there's. I'm so angry. I am so angry. I don't feel like I've gotten out of anger for a year and a half. I don't know how long this is going to last, but just feeling so angry and seeing the things that are happening, not only happening, but people get behind it and apol. And just like, yeah, just like, no, this is good.
- [65:08]
A
Yeah. Abandon any pretense of goodness or kindness and just like pledge allegiance to it. It's been, it's been mind numbing.
- [65:16]
B
I can't understand it. I. I can't wrap my head around why nobody is going, what would Jesus do? I mean, like, right, we got the bracelets. They trained us. Like, they radicalized us. How do you it.
- [65:34]
A
That drives me crazy. Like, what radicalized you? Jesus did.
- [65:38]
B
Literally you.
- [65:42]
A
This. The guy, the guy on that guy.
- [65:44]
B
He rationalized me and my mom, actually. She's still very in the faith. All four of us children, me and my siblings, we are all out. We are all deconstructed, either atheist or agnostic and for many different reasons of our own. And my mom is still going to two different churches on Sunday. Even her new husband is very fundamentalist and like 16 years older than her. Oh, boy, It's.
- [66:19]
A
I heard that part.
- [66:19]
B
So it's navigating that trying to still have a relationship with her is difficult because everything that I'm feeling is bypassed. It's. She can't. She doesn't know how to sit in it with me. It's. Do you want to pray about it?
- [66:37]
A
Yep.
- [66:40]
B
And so it's really.
- [66:41]
A
I don't mean to laugh, but your facial expression was really funny.
- [66:44]
B
I really can't. I can do this. No, it's. It's really difficult. And I know that a lot of us who have been through the deconstruction process and still have family members in it. It's its own beast that you have to navigate and try to understand. Because I know from my own personal experience, you can't yell facts at these people. You can't. You can't wake them up because they're going to grip onto something that is their identity, it's their foundation, it's their safety somehow. And they still think, they believe everything that they hear from authority because that's what they've been trained and that's what they know. And I noticed this part of my own deconstruction right after all those cracks where it's almost like I was looking for another box. I was like, okay, if that's not the box, if that's not the map, which one is mine? So, you know, you. You look into Buddhism and like all these other religions, you're like, if I'm
- [67:37]
A
not that can tell me what to believe and what to do. Yeah. Yeah. Because you're so.
- [67:41]
B
Because our brains are wired that way.
- [67:42]
A
Yeah. You're so used to. You are programmed from the time you can understand language to be. To listen to some authority figure dictate faith to you. And so learning how to unplug from that. That's why so many people from cults or high control groups, groups fall into other ones because they are looking for. There is. Even when it's sinister and you don't like it, there is something very comforting about someone telling you exactly what to do, exactly what's right and wrong. This is 100 the truth. Don't question me. This is what your life's going to look like. I am going to dictate your life to you. There is a comfort and a safety in that. And when it gets woven into not just your worldview, but your community, your sense of self, your sense of purpose, it is really, really hard to rip that root out.
- [68:26]
B
Yeah. There's no foundation. If I have to figure out what like. And being in that at the same time, I'm still trying to figure out how to trust myself. You feel so lost. Everything is foggy. Everything. You feel like you lose everything because you're not just losing your community, you're losing your identity. And it feels like an identity crisis. And you're trying to. To find something that you can easily just fit into. And it's just. It doesn't work that way. But that's why when it gets. When you get to that, the last stage, which is more of this rebuilding part, you start to feel the benefits of everything that like you just went through. You start to realize that, like, you actually have confidence in who you are. You can trust yourself. It comes naturally. And everything that you have have picked up along the way because something resonated about it, and you left other things behind because it just didn't fit. Then you realize that, like, wow, I'm actually building a life. I'm enjoying. I'm feeling more fulfilled. This is the feeling that I've been searching for. This is the piece that I was missing, was my truth, the reality that I wanted to sit in. But that doesn't take away from the fact that what we are watching in the world is a dumpster fire. And the only thing it is a dumpster fire.
- [69:46]
A
Just. Anyway, continue on.
- [69:48]
B
It's a Gong show dumpster fire. And the only thing that really gives me hope, I think, is knowing that people like you and me, who were so deeply in it, found our way out. It's people that give me hope. And it's recognizing that everything that we're in, as bad as it is, it is creating enough cognitive dissonance for people to actually break out of it.
- [70:17]
A
Yeah, I think there's a huge wave of that happening right now. There's a lot of people asking, a lot of people waking up to, wait a minute. That's not what I signed up for. That's not what I believe in. And that's the thing that keeps me the most hopeful, is I think that especially with Christian nationalism, it has shown itself now like, they have taken all the masks off. They have shown in spades who they are. There's no pretense. There's no lies. There's none of it. They have shown us they're being loud about it. They're being loud about it. And so now I think what they're doing in the long run is they are destroying any opportunity for them to have power in the future. Because when this is over, they will never be trusted again. They will never hold the power and prominence that they once had because they took the mask off, which gives me so much hope. Hope cannot wait. So excited. But I've also really loved seeing these beautiful expressions of faith also pop up where you see James Tallarico, who is, like, very open about his Christianity. He's a divinity student. He's running for Senate. And he carries himself in this beautiful way of, like. He's like, yes, I'm a Christian, and this affects my decisions. That's why I believe in the separation of church and state. That's why I believe that everyone should be represented. That's why I believe that it's more important to feed the poor than it is to demonize trans people. And his faith is very prominent in the conversation because I think that's where Democrats messed up for a long time is they wouldn't talk about faith at all. Like, it was taboo. Don't touch it. It's not serious. And it is serious. We have to be able to have it in the conversation. It shouldn't be what you're legislating with. That's the big. You know. And Zoran Mamdani as well, with, like, coming forward with his faith and same thing. My faith is very important to me. And because of that, I'm going to take care of people. And he has just had a landmark first quarter, just living that out. So I've also loved seeing those people kind of like a contrasting picture of what faith can look like versus like a Doug Wilson and a Pete Hegseth. And
- [72:25]
B
I'm literally working on something about them. And the more I, like, look into them, I'm like, I need to take some time because it's so bad.
- [72:33]
A
It's so bad. Did you see Doug Wilson get his ass roasted on Piers Morgan? Morgan, yes. That was so good. Ali did not hold back. And that's exactly. That is the correct response, quite frankly.
- [72:46]
B
It's therapeutic to watch stuff like that.
- [72:48]
A
Nice. I, like, had it on repeat yesterday. Just keep listening to it. It was so good.
- [72:51]
B
It's like worship music. Yeah.
- [72:54]
A
Here I am. To worship. So the last question I have for you, something I love for my listeners, especially from a real reader, if you had to recommend people who are questioning or they're somewhere on this deconstruction journey, what are three books that you would say are must reads for people that just want to explore and widen their perspective?
- [73:19]
B
Okay, I. Separation of Church and Hate.
- [73:24]
A
Yes. John Fugelsang.
- [73:27]
B
Oh, that is. That is a must read. You'll read it like three times. It's so good. It touches on every topic and it also gives examples of, like, how do you handle hard conversations around these things? Two, it is really. It's really a good book and well written.
- [73:45]
A
He's great.
- [73:46]
B
And like having it written from a comedian, it also is very entertaining as well. So that is such a good book. The book I also mentioned was When God Was a Woman, because it does go back to when the shift happened from more of a matriarchal society to patriarchy. And third, I would say. This might be weird to say, but to anybody, deconstructing and wanting to go back and read the Bible. I would say the SBL Study Bible because it puts. It's put together by actual scholars. And so they can actually, actually set the tone of, like, the political environment that all these books were written in and who actually wrote them. And it can even decipher what certain things mean. So, yeah, those are. Those would be the three.
- [74:40]
A
So. And if you've attended my Bible studies ever, because I teach two Bible studies a month.
- [74:43]
B
I have a couple.
- [74:45]
A
Yeah. So if you are listening, the SBL Study Bible is the one I teach from. And the reason that I teach from it is exactly what she just said. The. There's. I believe it's seven or eight thousand scholars who put that Bible together. It's the most accurate English translation that we have. And each section of the Bible comes with historical context about the era, the political climate. And then each book has an intro of here's the author, here's when it was written, here's how it was put together, here's where it changed it. Will that. I mean, if that teaches you so much about how this saga that led to the Bible came to be from a scholarly perspective, and you start to realize you're like, oh, there's a lot of. Some of this is kind of messy. Some of this is a little bit. It's a little bit messy. And I tell my Bible study class all the time, let the Bible be messy. Let it be what it is. It's an ancient text written in ancient times by ancient men with a lot of conflict. They all didn't believe the same things. They disagreed with each other, they were making war, and then they had to write history. So it looked like they were the good guys. And you guys, let's just go for the ride together. And it makes it so much more fun to read when you can approach it from this sense of playfulness. So I highly recommend that. And I'm glad that you mentioned that. I'm learning, I'm rereading. I mean, I think this is my 15th time cover to cover something 15 or 16 and doing it through the SBL for the first time with the Apocrypha. Cause reading the Apocrypha for the first time was really fun for me. And so going and learning all of that along the way, even things that I didn't know about up to this point, just really, really incredible. So I wanted to say before we wrap up, where can everyone find you? Do you have any projects coming up? Give us. Give us the scoop.
- [76:27]
B
Yeah, the Scoop. Okay, find me on Instagram first and foremost. That's Crystal Dawn Alchemy 4. I'm not really on TikTok anymore. They were suppressing all my stuff and I was like, fine, you then same Patreon. I'm now building because my Instagram was shut down last October. I think it was for a few days. And I pan. Yes, they removed my Instagram and they gave it back after I appealed it.
- [76:55]
A
And why did you say why they removed it?
- [76:59]
B
I'm trying to remember. They wouldn't give specifics. It was one of those things where I think AI Trig, like got triggered by too many things and just shut it down. And so I had to appeal. And then so like an actual human being went in and had to see like what I was posting or something. But then the great. Gratefully, thankfully I got it back. But that was when I was like, I need to put my work into something that can't be just erased overnight. So I started a Patreon. So you can find me on Patreon. Crystal Dawn Alchemy. So that's where a lot of my deeper work. More, longer, longer form things. So if you ever watch one of my reels and you're like, wait, keep talking about it. I probably did on Patreon. Some projects I'm in. I am currently writing a book that will be published in 2. 20, 2027 that is going to be basically my deconstruction journey. A lot of the cracks that I experienced and a lot of the truths that I found along the way. And I will be featured in a documentary coming up tentatively by the end of the year. And yeah, that's pretty much the big. The big stuff.
- [78:06]
A
All the things. All the things. So please, if you're listening, please go follow Crystal on Instagram. All the things. Keep asking questions, because there's no movement founded in truth that has an issue with questions. And the more we learn, the freer we get and the happier we all are. And Crystal, thank you so much for coming on. Thank you so much for your story, for your work, and for being vulnerable enough to share that work. As someone who used to be part of these movements, I am not. I'm under no illusions about how hard it is to come forward and to start to voice it. It.
- [78:37]
B
Yeah, it's terrifying. So thank you so much.
- [78:40]
A
So thank you for that. And to everyone again, please go follow her page, support her. I will see you next week on Flipping Tables.