The Deeper Pulse with Candice Schutter
Hi. I'm Candice Schutter. I started The Deeper Pulse podcast about a year into the pandemic when I was feeling lost and desperate for connection. I began with sharing personal stories, striving to make sense of life and my own stilted self-expression. In the process, I encountered some spiritual wounds and dove headfirst into the world of cult recovery, discovering that - not only did it hold the key to a door that I’d been banging on since I was a child - it may even offer us a way out of the royal mess we're making of this whole being human thing. On TDP, my guests and I talk about the everyday labor of self-expression, unpack what puts the 'cult' culture, and brave sweaty-palm truths to restore collective agency and self-dominion.
If you're new to the pod, Ep.1-17 are all about recovering from feelings of stuckness. And if you're recovering from a high-demand relationship, workplace, wellness 'cult'ure, and/or just generally feeling passionate around issues of social justice - check out episodes 32+.
The Deeper Pulse with Candice Schutter
#73 - P.S. Frenemies, Spirit Barbie, Law of Attraction, Intimacy vs. Intensity, & 'Org' Extra | Deconstructing Dogma w/ Special Guests
The 'cult'ure series is scheduled to wrap next week. In the meantime, here's another Patreon Sampler & sneak peek at the Deconstructing Dogma bonus series that will be streaming through the new year over on Patreon. There are currently 40+ bonus episodes available to patrons of the pod, and this sampler features some of our favorite moments from recent releases.
In this Patreon Sampler, you'll hear excerpts from:
- Frenemies: The Not-So-Fringe Reality, where Candice & Tracy unpack how top-down power dynamics have seemingly spread into 'Org' communities worldwide.
- Spirit Barbie: The Performance of Wellness - a one-hour deconstruction of the how we are socially conditioned to present ourselves in the world of wellness; ie. 'high talk', dieting, and detox culture.
- Maria Skinner once again joins Candice & Tracy, this time to take a critical look at The Law of Attraction. We trade personal stories and talk 'manifestation', channeling, and mindset vs. magical thinking.
- Intimacy vs. Intensity - Candice shares about the helpful advice she once received from a therapist who was well-versed in relational dynamics at 'the Org.' She & Tracy unpack it a bit, then chat about the forced intimacy that is so often created in wellness training environments.
- Adi Goren returns for a bonus convo, this time to to deconstruct The Economy of 'the Org.' Adi invites us to examine how the business model of the company is a feudal system where the many work in service to those at the top; then we talk free labor and the challenges of moving on after leaving.
If you want more of what this episode has to offer, consider becoming a patron of the pod for as little as $5 a month. Patreon donations keep the podcast ad-free. If you're interested in learning more, visit patreon.com/thedeeperpulse.
The stories and opinions shared in this episode are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any individual, group, or organization.
Join The Deeper Pulse at Patreon for weekly bonus episodes + other exclusive bonus content. Follow The Deeper Pulse on IG @thedeeperpulse + @candiceschutter for more regular updates.
Welcome to another episode of The Deeper Pulse. Next week, I'll be rolling out the final episode of the'cult'ure series. It's a solo episode, and I'm still in the writing and production phase. But I can't wait to share it with you. And then after that, I will be taking a break indefinitely from the main feed of this podcast. And I honestly can't say for sure if and when I'll be back again. But what I do know is that my friends, former colleagues, and I, we are going to keep having hard hitting conversations over on Patreon into the new year. And so since you won't be hearing from me here, it felt fitting to share one more Patreon Sampler with you before we wrap up this series, just to give you another taste of where our conversations have been headed lately in the Deconstructing Dogma bonus series. Stories and opinions shared here are based on personal experience and are not intended to malign any group, individual, or organization. So let's get to it. In this episode, you're going to hear excerpts from bonus conversations. And please keep in mind that these clips offer only a sneak peek of what each of these episodes has to offer. And an important heads up that the episode numbers that are referenced here, they correspond with bonus episodes in the deconstructing dogma series hosted exclusively over on Patreon, rather than the content that's featured here on the main feed. And if at any point you decide you want to access any or all of these bonus conversations, head over to patreon.com/thedeeperpulse. Video and audio bonuses are hosted behind the Patreon paywall, and all donations support the countless hours that I've spent behind the scenes on production of The Deeper Pulse'cult'ure series. Whether you decide to join us over there or not, either way, thank you for listening in, and I hope you enjoy this Patreon Sampler. We're gonna start with a few clips from Deconstructing Dogma episode 34, entitled, Frenemies. In this episode, Tracy Stamper and I come together to take a closer look at the fact that we continually hear stories of interpersonal challenges in Org communities worldwide, about tensions and turf wars between teachers and trainers. So we sat down to discuss how top-down power dynamics very often spill into smaller communities. We share our own personal stories and speak about how, in most cases, the tensions that result are inevitabilities due to the ways in which community leaders are mimicking culty leadership or are simply struggling to make ends meet in saturated markets. So let's listen in. We're gonna start off today with a discussion of culty organizations where there's a hierarchy involved, the way that those hierarchical forces shape our relationships and our ways of relating to each other. And how, specifically in the culture at the Org, we're really seeing the dynamics that are not only present in the innermost circles, but have rippled out into communities globally. So there's lots there.
Tracy Stamper:So, as we're hearing from other folks in other communities, literally across the world. I'm recognizing my own local community in stories where there are two individuals who just oil and water, who just can't get along, can't seem to peacefully coexist. And how that affects the larger community. And I was one of those two folks in local dynamics and things got really out of hand and ugly and painful for all involved. It felt like there was a competitive dynamic going on and, I'm, I'm so confused as to how to talk about it, because I never understood why that was there.
Candice Schutter:Do you understand now?
Tracy Stamper:Yep, I do. So, I didn't use my voice in community, because I didn't wanna talk bad about someone else. I didn't wanna create drama. It was kind of like a no-win situation I feel.
Candice Schutter:I see this as a pattern in the Org. Because it's culty. There's a mission. And it's about the mission and set your personal feelings aside and the mission. And that we are forced into relationships we might not choose otherwise.
Tracy Stamper:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:And we are forced to make nice and work with folks that maybe we don't wanna make nice and work with. And that actually we can actually be a much nicer, more compassionate person if we keep a distance from that person. Let's just pick a city like Portland. All the yoga teachers don't have to be friends with each other. All the Pilates teachers don't have to be friends with each other. All the Zumba teachers, I was in the Zumba community in Portland. We didn't all have to be friends with each other. We didn't all have to work together for the mission. And go to events together and plan things together. And compete for business in a community that does not have the demand. Like, at least in Zumba, most of our classes were full.
Tracy Stamper:That's helpful.
Candice Schutter:It is helpful. There was enough people who wanted to do it. But in most places people are like, what is the Org? You know, 40 years in, like, it's what? What is it? It's so hard to define. It's just it's, it hasn't worked for a reason. Just wanna say that. But like, you're in a city where you're competing for students. And there's just not enough to go around because not enough people are interested in what you're doing. It's just the plain and simple facts. So you've got these two things working against you. You've got, you're competing for resources, that there's just not enough to go around in terms of business. And then, if you meet somebody that you just don't really vibe with, and you have to work in like a communal way. It's just, both of those things, I don't even know that you need to go into the details of your experience. I think it's pretty easy for us all to see like, yeah, I could see how that would lead to problems.
Tracy Stamper:Problems ensued.
Candice Schutter:Problems ensued.
Tracy Stamper:Problems ensued.
Candice Schutter:I mean, what's really jumping out at me is the difference between. Like, I think about this healing session that was gonna happen. There's a real blind spot in the world of wellness between healing and accountability. Like the difference between equity and equality. We talk about healing all the time, like we're healing. So there's this sense that like, oh, we're gonna come to the table, and healing means that everyone gets equal time and equal consideration. And everyone's equally guilty and equal, equal, equal, equal, equal. When in fact it's about creating equity in terms of, if there's a pattern where somebody's being abused or overlooked or marginalized or misrepresented, dah, dah, dah, dah, da, all the things that happen, there is somebody who needs to be more accountable than somebody else. It's not about, we're all coming into this in the same. I don't know, there's just something really bypassy, spiritual bypassy about this whole idea of healing when it's actually accountability that's needed. And I really was thinking as you were talking about like what are a person's options if, if some of you out there are in a situation like this? What are your options? And this is the hard truth that I wanna speak. And this is why the Org's systemic dysfunction is playing out in communities, and why it's not as simple as like, let's just fix it at the Org and everything will be hunky dory.
Tracy Stamper:Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Candice Schutter:You know, at HQ. It's like, the pattern of not holding Org leadership accountable is part of what has been replicated. So if leaders aren't held accountable to certain standards in terms of how they're meant to treat one another. And how much space people can take up. And how we consider each other. And is there room for dissent? And all the things that are, there's a whole series on it. You should check it out. There's a lot of stuff. All those things that, that gets replicated in these communities. So the option becomes, if I'm gonna try to fix this, I have to create a system of accountability where it doesn't exist.
Tracy Stamper:Whew. Yeah.
Candice Schutter:I can't just sit across from somebody and"heal" the situation by saying some nice words and listening and everybody eye gazing. There needs to be a system of accountability where there never has been a system of accountability. Do I wanna take that on? Is that something I wanna do? Or can I create enough of a buffer?'cause in some communities, people have been successful doing that. I would argue Shannon was successful at doing that until Marissa decided, oh, let's just make this public knowledge and just throw fuel on a fire.
Tracy Stamper:Mm-hmm.
Candice Schutter:That it had actually been tempered because these individuals have figured out to create a healthy distance between them. In other cases though, sometimes we have to surrender our status. And that's like the hardest thing, like you were saying. When I said, what would you have done differently? You could stick around and try to create a system of accountability where there isn't one and there, and the model from the top is that you don't need one.
Tracy Stamper:Right.
Candice Schutter:Or you can just say, I'm gonna stop competing. I'm gonna stop. I'm gonna stop competing. Does that mean walking away from the Org? I think it depends on the situation. For some people it does. And for other people it doesn't. But it does mean no longer engaging in the struggle for power and position and visibility and importance. Next up? Spirit Barbie. It's Deconstructing Dogma bonus episode 35. And yes, we recorded it not long after the release of the Barbie movie. Greta Gerwig's thought provoking feminist social commentary just really got me fired up about what I like to call the performance of wellness. It's an hour long episode, but here's a quick sample. Okay, I'll share a non Org specific example. When I was part of a online yoga community.
Tracy Stamper:Mm-hmm.
Candice Schutter:I hadn't been in like a new age wellness type spiritual community for years. I had purposefully stayed far away after leaving the Org. And so I thought my sensations going in and my discomfort was on me. Because of my triggers. Because of my experience. Because of what I was bringing to it. That now I see that I was just picking up on something right away. But I remember when I entered into it,'cause there was like a Facebook group, and like reading through the, the threads and feeling like there's just a one dimensionality to it. And I actually ended up getting close to the facilitator, the leader. It's a whole other story. But I ended up getting close to the person who was sort of at the helm of this community. And I even shared with her at one point, like I feel concerned, because when I read the comments, when I read through the feed for the group, it feels like everyone is just imitating you. It feels like your voice is just being parroted. Like maybe a little different tone. And, and I, these are all really beautiful people saying beautiful things, but they're attempting to communicate it through these filters of how we're supposed to speak and articulate and always from"I" and impeccable. And it, like, becomes this contrived sense of self. And like the message might be in there somewhere, but I feel like I'm like trying to get behind something all the time. Where's the human behind this? Where's the individuality? And does everyone always agree? Does everyone always see things exactly the same way? It just felt like little red flags that were waving.
Tracy Stamper:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:And, and I wanna say I participated in that to a certain degree. And then I would feel kind of ick after I would make a comment. Why am I talking like that? What am I doing? That's Spirit Barbie to me. That's the performance of wellness. That's how we're supposed to show up so we can fit right into the mold. And when I started to divert from that, and when I started to stray and say things differently. There was always this sense of, you're welcome to disagree. You're always welcome to bring in these different opinions. And there was room for it, theoretically. There's a lot of lip service around, there's plenty of room for all these different ways of being. But if you don't show up as Spirit Barbie, you are marginalized in some way. There's a cringe factor that show, you can feel it in the room. There's a tension that emerges immediately when you don't perform wellness right. So we tend to fall in line,'cause it's a way to secure belonging, right? It's like I can either feel marginalized, or I can do the Spirit Barbie walk and high talk. I like to say we traded in our high heels for high talk.
Tracy Stamper:Oh, damn.
Candice Schutter:It's just a whole other way of elevating ourselves. It's just another way of shaping ourselves to fit into these expectations and ideals. And I just, it makes me sad because I still fall into it sometimes, and I catch myself and then I have to pull back.
Tracy Stamper:Let's see, I was going to a holistic doctor. I was going through early menopause and my body was just a lot of different levels and things out of whack. And so my doctor recommended a diet meant to flush my liver. By the way, I don't do any of these things anymore because of this, these experiences. But at the time, she put me on a four to six week program of restructuring my chemical components in my body. As I was on that, I started losing weight really noticeably really quickly. And it wasn't that I wasn't eating, I was eating a significant amount of food. It was just very, it was a very scientific approach to eating. So I would be showing up in classes over these weeks. I think I, I, I looked so different from how I started. And also I did not have the energy to teach. So I would start class by saying, you know, I'm doing something. I'm not gonna be able to put in a hundred percent effort. I'm taking care of myself. Don't let my holding back, hold you back. Do what you need to do. And I was stunned when students and people in the community started doing the same eating program I was. They asked what the name of the book was. And, and I don't even wanna say it anymore, because this was so disconcerting to me. I had people come up and say, oh, I've lost X number of pounds on your, and like, what? This was something that my doctor recommended to me for very specific signs she was seeing in my blood work.
Candice Schutter:But you were losing weight, so it was like, oh.
Tracy Stamper:I was losing weight and that's all that folks.
Candice Schutter:All that mattered.
Tracy Stamper:seemed to care about.
Candice Schutter:Mm-hmm.
Tracy Stamper:So I did see how within the Org practice and larger community, how one individual's approach to food and eating could be passed down in a way that freaked me out.
Candice Schutter:Yeah. This woman came into my class the other day. And she was wearing these workout pants. And they have these cool like lines and stripes on them and stuff. And I was like, those pants are really cool. And she's like, oh, thanks, actually, and she kind of was rolling her eyes as she said it. She's like, they're supposed to help with cellulite. And, and she just was laughing. She's like, I know. I'm like, they're supposed to help cellulite go away? She's like, yeah, if you wear'em when you're working out, they're supposed to help. And she kind of rolled her eyes and was laughing. And we both were. And also, we were laughing like, ha ha, that's funny that they make pants that. But also we were both like, yeah, you bought the pants. Of course she did. Of course she bought the pants. Like, ha ha ha ha. Yep. That's what we do. Spirit Barbie is about continually turning away from our humanity in favor of the performance of wellness. And that stepping away from that performance means grappling with our humanity and being uncomfortable and saying things that people don't want us to say. And listening to things we don't wanna hear. And doing all this work that we're doing, all this deconstruction. And to stop celebrating what is unwell. Stop celebrating feeds where there's never any conflict. Stop celebrating communities where everyone's just always love and light.
Tracy Stamper:Because they're dissociated.
Candice Schutter:Right? Exactly. Yeah, or they're suffering in silence. You know? And then maybe not in all cases, but in many cases as we are learning. As we are learning. It's white, new agey, spiritual and socioeconomic fragility. I have not developed the capacity to be with these uncomfortable truths, and so I'm gonna make uncomfortable truths unholy. That's, to me, what it feels like it is. That's what I used to do. Like, oh, I can't look at that. I don't wanna be bothered with that. Or maybe I was, in some cases, not maybe, in some cases I was just mental-health wise. I had a panic disorder. I had so much anxiety. I didn't have the capacity to take in anything more than the existential drama that was going on inside of me. What I didn't understand then that I see now is the way out, is through.
Tracy Stamper:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:That I can't sequester myself and protect myself from the uncomfortable parts of life. And so I feel like that part of purity culture to me is just like this false idea around what it, what it means to be safe. And the lack of a capacity to engage with difficult truths. And then it gets projected out. It becomes tone policing. It's like, I'm not gonna listen to that, because it's negative. I'm not gonna listen to that, because it's drama, it's victim hood, it's whatever. And I'm gonna make that wrong rather than grapple with the fact that I just am uncomfortable with it. Next up, a two part convo that I have been wanting to have for over a decade. Back in early August, friend of the pod, Maria Skinner, sent me a Messenger DM, writing:"The Law of Attraction. I wonder if there's a podcast about this in the future. It might be too much to take on, but I feel like I really did a number on myself with it. And I know you've been into it, too." Yeah, I'll say. I wrote Maria back immediately, and the conversation got so juicy that I invited her to join us once again on Patreon to deconstruct the topic with Tracy and I. The result was a two hour dialogue where I walk us through the history of the Law of Attraction, and we trade stories about how it showed up in the Org's teachings, and how much time and energy we each invested in high vibe promises. And we talk channeling. Is it real? Here's a meaty sample of episodes 36 and 37.
Maria Skinner:So I was just thinking about creating your own reality. And, I think the thing that really initially got me into the law of attraction was like, wow, this sounds a lot like the Org. Where you focus your brain and you go toward your mind, you know, and you keep it where you want it. And that whole piece around, um, it's my responsibility to create the vibration that's gonna create what I want. And I think, you know, the law of attraction has sort of become like manifestation, like how to get rich. Like that whole thing is in here. So that was kind of like my initial. And I knew that you had been involved and I thought, ooh, I wanna deconstruct this.
Candice Schutter:Yeah. Yeah. It's fascinating to me. Tracy, do you have, I don't guess, we've never really talked about your relationship to law of attraction. Was it something that you were interested in outside of the Org? I know it's woven into the Org teachings big time. But outside of it, did you explore it? Or what's your, what are your thoughts?
Tracy Stamper:I tried, I really did try. And to me it felt very much like my exploration of the four energy allies or agreements in that the ideal expression or the ideal practice of it was something that I just couldn't attain because my humanity kept getting in the way.
Candice Schutter:Right. Damn that humanity.
Tracy Stamper:Every time.
Candice Schutter:You couldn't nail your vibration quite right.
Tracy Stamper:I, oh, still trying.
Candice Schutter:Yeah.
Maria Skinner:What does it even mean? You know, even vibration, you know? I mean, I just feel like there's so many things. And again, you know, maybe it goes back to like the word salad idea. That concepts that I have intuitively, that sort of makes sense. But then once I start really trying to implement them in my life, I feel like I'm a complete failure at it.
Tracy Stamper:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:Well, it's interesting because the, I think one of the key distinctions that gets missed in spaces. And I, I just wanna say full disclosure, I used to teach workshops on the law of attraction at New Renaissance Bookshop in Portland. And I remember feeling like, I've arrived! When I first got booked to do a workshop there, at the New Age Mecca. Those of you haven't been to Portland, it's like this gigantic new age bookstore. Um, was sort of like my church back in the day. I would go there like every Sunday and just wander around and lay on the floor and read books. And so I was super steeped in this, all the while having a tremendous amount of cognitive dissonance the whole time from the very beginning. Struggling with it even as I was facilitating around it. But, the thing that gets missed that doesn't get talked about, that I never talked about, was the difference between mindset and magical thinking.
Maria Skinner:Right.
Candice Schutter:Like, mindset is like something that psychologists teach about, right? And it's cognitive behavioral therapy in its positive sense,'cause that's also been misused. There's definitely a science as, as scientific as we can get about things that, that we can only measure sort of subjectively, to shifting our mindset, having a different mindset around something. Growth versus fixed, for example. There's lots of stuff around that that I won't go into. And like, I think a lot of what I was seeking and looking for was mindset training. And a lot of the benefit I got, it was sort of like a, a byproduct of the law of attraction teaching. Like when I first stepped into the teachings, it gave me a sense of agency over my emotions, initially. Like I used to just feel what I felt. And I was like, oh my God. Like there's a connection between what I think and what I feel? I mean, it sounds so elementary now, but at the time it was kind of extraordinary. Like to realize oh, my thoughts actually do influence how I feel. And when I am repetitively thinking a certain thought, it does impact. My mindset impacts the way that my emotional body responds. Like that makes sense to me. But the law of attraction takes it 2000 steps further and says that that mindset shift is generative. That it actually literally creates the outside world.
Maria Skinner:Right, right.
Candice Schutter:Which is magical thinking.
Maria Skinner:it, because it's like, if I stay here, then another good thing will happen and then another good thing and it'll just be good things. But then if bad things start happening, it means that I'm not thinking right. It's like that whole.
Candice Schutter:Exactly.
Tracy Stamper:Ding, ding, ding.
Maria Skinner:It's a mind fuck. It really is.
Candice Schutter:It's a complete mind fuck. And it's incredibly narcissistic.
Maria Skinner:Well, right. Like I'm in control.
Candice Schutter:Not only I'm in control, but the world is functioning according to me.
Maria Skinner:Yeah. Well, Esther Hicks, I mean, she's very wealthy. Like she's made a lot of money from this. Right?
Tracy Stamper:Which just proves that she's right.
Candice Schutter:Exactly. That's the beauty of this model. And it works two ways. It proves that you're right, the richer you get, the more like people are like, oh, look at how much this person's manifesting. But it also works in the other direction, because people who are at the top can always punch down. They can always punch down and be like, you are without because of you. You are without because of you. And they can make it so that we internalize that message and we believe that. We don't even have to punch down anymore'cause we're too busy punching ourselves.
Maria Skinner:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:This is why I use the word cult. And I'm like, so adamant about using the word cult, because of the way indoctrination functions. It's not as simple as, you know, that guy's kind of not a very good leader. It's like, no, when you indoctrinate people and you teach people to subjugate themselves, that is fucked up cultic shit right there. Like you teach somebody, I don't even need to power over you, because I've taught you to do it to yourself.
Maria Skinner:Wow. Well, it does also point to the hunger that people have to find a way to live life.
Candice Schutter:Yeah.
Tracy Stamper:Absolutely.
Maria Skinner:Outside of that anxious place.
Candice Schutter:I could literally pull out right now a journal from like 2007, 8. Well, actually going back to 2002. So I read my 13 journals that I have, that's how I did episode 33, I used my journals to capture that story and how it all played out. And when I was reading them, I would get sort of nauseous sometimes. Because I would just flip page after page, after page, after page, after page after page of affirmations. Like I was desperate.
Maria Skinner:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:And I couldn't even journal honestly. Because I would be like, I have to say this in the right way, because it's a vibration. I can't even, I wouldn't even allow myself to pour my. And even as I'm saying this, I'm just now realizing that no wonder. You know, as I'm hearing stories from people coming out of the Org, and they're sharing things and I'm hearing about things that I forgot. Or it's like worse than I thought. It's worse than I remember.
Tracy Stamper:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:And then I think about these journals, I'm like, well, I, I wouldn't have dare written those words. So there's a lot I didn't even write about, because I couldn't. That was negative. That was low vibe. That was complaining. That was like, I wouldn't even let myself do it in a journal. Because vibration.
Maria Skinner:Well, even Marissa, I heard her say it a few times, she said to me, just don't give it any energy.
Candice Schutter:Oh yeah. That's a big.
Tracy Stamper:A lot.
Candice Schutter:Don't give it any energy. Wow. Yeah. I think I might still say that sometimes. Shit.
Tracy Stamper:And are there some times where that reminder can be helpful to you?
Candice Schutter:That's true, Tracy. Thank you. Yeah, that's true.
Maria Skinner:Probably. I, I think so. And in the context of how it was used, a lot of times it really just was a dismissing. Like, but you know, like the complexity. Like this is really good, but also some of it doesn't feel so good, you know?
Candice Schutter:Yeah. It's a way to shut down critical thinking.
Tracy Stamper:And pushback. If it's gonna be really helpful for me, if I wanna start a cult, to tell people around me to do that, so that I don't receive any pushback. It's just a real quick deflection.
Maria Skinner:So, so Candice, you, you are saying you were a very good student and you did all this stuff and then, but you didn't make money.
Candice Schutter:No, not from attract. I mean, I made money'cause I worked. But like I didn't, no. I didn't attract. And, but there, confirmation bias was at work. So like, some little thing. Like I even talked about I think in 33 where I say when I was struggling at the Org. And I had been doing all my law of attraction stuff to try to get my vibes in order'cause I was clearly I was just kept attracting more problems there because I just couldn't get my vibes in order. So I was working really hard on that. And then one day Marissa walked into my office, when I had been really struggling around all this money stuff. And she said, I think we're just gonna renovate your office. I don't know exact words, but in my journal I had written that she offered to pay out of her own pocket to remodel this office for me. And she did, like, I got to pick out color, and we did like this fancy, like gold glaze thing on the color. And she brought in all new furniture. And I thought I manifested that. So I thought it was working, right. I was like, oh, look what I manifested. Or like, they would take us out to a really fancy dinner. I manifested that. Or I went on a trip with my family. I got to go to Hawaii for the first time. Because I had been reunited with my father who I'd been estranged from, and they had more money than my family had ever had on my mom's side. So I got to take a trip. But I manifested that. And when we went to the buffet and I got to eat whatever. I, I manifested that. Like, so, I was"manifesting" things. In my mind I would tell myself this is because of what I'm doing. But I still would write bad checks before I would get paid just to get cash from the supermarket so that I could make it through the week. I never manifested myself out of my debt. I worked myself out of my debt. I rebuilt my credit after I got out of the law of attraction. Because I started to realize that vibing right, wasn't going to cut it. It wasn't working. It just wasn't working. So, no, it didn't work for me. It really didn't. I had some, some small moments that I could point to and say, oh, that's what that was. But I, in retrospect, don't think it was. Yeah, It is such a mindfuck. And you can't win at it. Which is why people keep giving Esther money. And, and it's worth noting that Esther and Jerry were a part of Amway.
Maria Skinner:Yeah, yeah, yeah, right.
Candice Schutter:Before they started the whole Abraham-Hicks thing. An MLM. Like one of the, like, hallmark MLMs from back in the day. And they created, not an MLM, but a really similar type of business model out of this whole Abraham-Hicks thing. They didn't create a straight up MLM, but they definitely created a model where they're the people who are winning.
Tracy Stamper:Mm-hmm.
Candice Schutter:I know, I'm sure you know, some people who have been a part of Abraham-Hicks would be able to watch this video and write me letters and be like, well, this is what happened to me after I started doing this work. And it's like, great. And I say to you, correlation is not causation. It's one of the first things I learned in college when I was working on my honors thesis. You can't say just because this happened and this happened, that that one thing caused the other. That's called a correlation. You have to prove causation. And so to any of you out here there who were like, law of attraction worked for me. I'm like, great. Maybe it did and did it? How do you know? Maybe, maybe give yourself some fucking credit. That's the other thing. Like why are we always like, it's because these people taught me this thing that this great thing happened to me. Or it's because I did this practice that these things. Maybe you just made it happen. Maybe you're awesome and you worked your ass off. Or maybe you got lucky. Or maybe you have privilege. That's a big one.
Tracy Stamper:That's a huge one.
Maria Skinner:Well, here's where I've done harm to other people with the law of attraction. Okay? Being with people who are in a bad state of mind for whatever reason, like depressed or something really shitty just happened to them. And then me being like, well, think of it this way. Like, let's reframe it. You know, like really in some way dismissing. I realize now when I did it, I think that I had two things that I wanted to accomplish. One was, well, in order for me to be in my practice, I need to sort of impose this on this person. You know because it's part of what I'm putting out in the world.
Candice Schutter:Right.
Maria Skinner:And then also, to keep myself from feeling like, Oh, no, I'm gonna get sucked up by their bad vibe, you know. Like, I mean, I guess it just goes back a little bit to the narcissistic place. And then the control of, you know, if I'm doing the practice, I'm doing the practice, but as soon as I'm imposing it on somebody else. And, you know, maybe what they needed to hear was like, just get a hug or whatever, you know. Not be like, oh, well if you thought of it this way, then maybe blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, like that. yeah, I just.
Candice Schutter:I just wanna say to your precious heart that I used to make money doing that. And it's really something I grapple with and have shame around. And healthy shame. I'm not saying I, I spin out on it anymore. But I have healthy shame around it. And I always will, and I think I should.
Maria Skinner:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:Because I used to make money sitting with people, helping them to reframe. I mean, there were. I, I was never like, I was always somewhat balanced in it, you know, I, I didn't disregard those other emotions as much. But I was always trying to move them along that continuum.
Maria Skinner:Right, right.
Candice Schutter:You know? I was just like, okay, how do I? Like, I remember studying that chart and being like, how do I, when I have a client who's in despair move them to frustration as quickly as possible so that I can get them. But my aim was always to get them to feel better. I need them to feel better. Because that's the thing that's gonna change what's going on out there.
Maria Skinner:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:It's like, no, that's not how it works, really. But I, I, that's what I believed, and so that's what I shared with other people. And I definitely felt that urgency around, like, we need to get these vibes in order right quick,'cause it's gonna take us both down if we don't. Did you never have that feeling when you were teaching the Org? Like I'm channeling the Org practice.
Maria Skinner:I've had feelings of like something coming through me. But I don't know if that's channeling or you know, whatever. I mean, I guess another word for channeling in some circles is like inspiration, or being touched by God.
Tracy Stamper:Mm-hmm.
Candice Schutter:Mm-hmm.
Tracy Stamper:I've certainly had experiences where the way that I verbalize it was having been in the flow or in the zone. And it feels as though what I'm coming up with is something that I alone could not have come up with. Do I feel like that is channeling something? No, that's just, it's not language that I would ever use. I felt inspired. I felt that I had been visited by the muse. To me, it felt like the internal dams were just gone so the flood gates could open. But did I think it was, you know, some spiritual entity coming through me? No, it was a really good writing day.
Maria Skinner:It's a pretty multicultural concept.
Candice Schutter:For sure. Right. Which is where being respectful of the cultural lens that we're looking through is really important when we talk about a topic like this. Right? Like of understanding like what that word even means in our culture, how we read it. Our own history is gonna be vastly different from other people's history who grew up in different cultures around this. So I love that you're both leading with, you don't know because I feel similarly. I don't know. I can only answer from my understanding of the word, my own experience with it. Like what I feel like is happening. But I don't know. Again, I'm with you. Is it possible? Maybe. Sure. Okay. Um, when I look at, at Esther Hicks now with a more critical eye. I mean, did I believe? I struggled. Even I remember sitting, this is gonna sound like the most privileged statement ever. I wanna say that the Abraham Cruise that I went on, my friend that I was really envious of because she had resources and I didn't, gifted me the cruise. I, I couldn't afford to go on the Abraham cruise. She gifted it to me. I think I did a trade with her. I did some work with her.
Maria Skinner:Well, maybe you manifested that.
Candice Schutter:Um, I, that's how I, that's how I it manifested it.
Tracy Stamper:Way to work the law of attraction.
Candice Schutter:So I remember sitting in the hot tub at the cruise talking with this couple. And the, man in the couple was saying like, he didn't know if he believed that there was channeling going on. And I agreed with him. Like, I don't know either. But what we would always say is, I don't know if it's a channel or not, but I'm benefiting from the information, so who cares, kind of thing. Like that was always the default. Which there's wisdom to be had in that.
Maria Skinner:I was really interested in what you meant by, um, channeling being something that happened in an dissociated state.
Candice Schutter:Yeah, I was saying that when we were dialoguing about Esther. And you said, do you think that she's channeling? And I said, the way that I see it is. And this I could be totally wrong, this is just me riffing, making a hypothesis. It's almost like a split persona. So dissociative disorder, the full on clinical definition is multiple personality disorder.
Maria Skinner:Oh, interesting.
Candice Schutter:So it's like you create these separate identities and like in a full on pathological expression of it, the identities might not be aware of each other. The primary identity might not be aware of these other identities. So to me, I kind of wonder sometime with somebody like Esther Hicks. It's like, she has this part of her that wants to express through this voice. And because, for whatever reason, she can't reconcile that with her personhood. She creates this split identity. And then because she needs to explain it, it's described as this other. And maybe she has access to some intelligence within herself based on her experience or things she's been exposed to, but she's not fully owning it. So it shows up as this separate entity. I don't know. So it's just a theory I
Maria Skinner:Yeah, it's interesting
Candice Schutter:Sometimes it's like a dissociative identity that's being packaged as a channeled entity. I mean, that's the thing for me, why I pretty much turn away anytime somebody's like, I'm channeling whatever. First of all, it makes me question their psychology a little bit. And secondly, I'm like, just own it.
Maria Skinner:Right. The owning part.
Candice Schutter:If you wanna say it, teach it, whatever, like, that's fine. I'm cool with that. I'm gonna trust you a lot more if you just own it. Because if you say it's some other entity, then you can always disown it. I didn't, I didn't say that. That's not me. Like it's. I don't know, it just feels dissociative. It feels ungrounded. And it feels a little suspect.
Maria Skinner:Yeah. Well, it's interesting'cause this idea of the, the channeling almost, like in some ways dismisses responsibility. And then what I'm thinking now, like if we wanna tie it back into the Org, the idea of like the nine movement forms and all these things that came together. Was it two creative people coming together and coming up with a cool practice? But then it became, no, it's actually coming from like.
Candice Schutter:And people are less likely to request accountability when that happens. Because it's not, it's like out of their hands. When it's totally not. It's totally in their hands. It's coming through their, like you said, their creative human expression. And there's gonna be flaws in it because it's coming through. And that's the thing people say about channeling. You'll go see a psychic sometimes and then they'll be like, well, it's coming through their human lens, so that's why it wasn't quite right. It's not because it's not exactly right. It's because it was coming through this human vessel. It's like, you know what? Let's just say like, I have an idea. I just had this image that came into my mind. I don't know if I'm a psychic or not, but I just saw this thing. Is there anything there for you?
Maria Skinner:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:You know, like why does it have to be divine knowledge that is being transmitted. It's just that's, yeah. Deconstructing Dogma episode 38 is entitled Intimacy vs. Intensity. This episode was Tracy's idea. She asked that I go deeper into a story that I shared in an early episode in the'cult'ure series where I referenced some game changing wisdom that I received from a therapist in my early days while working at Org HQ. It's a conversation that opens us into a deep dive into the difference between genuine intimacy and patterns of trauma that very often get confused with it. And it was a moment when I came into a session with him. I don't remember if it was the middle of the day or what, but I had just left the HQ offices. And I was shaken based on some events that had happened in an executive meeting, which was not uncommon.
Tracy Stamper:Mmm.
Candice Schutter:And he could sense it. And he had already given me the diagnosis of complex PTSD, which goes back well before the Org. But when he pressed, and I told him about the events of that day, I don't remember exactly all the details except that he just had this sort of knowing look on his face the whole time I was telling the story. He was just kind of nodding along and listening like he did so intently. And in his response, he said, I have noticed. And again, this is somebody who's worked with lots of different people in this company. And I'm paraphrasing,"I have noticed, that consistently at the Org, intensity is very often confused with intimacy." And it was kind of like a watershed moment. I was just like, wait. Yes. And say more about that, please. And he elaborated and essentially said something to the effect of, you know, we can have these moments where the same cycle keeps repeating. So, there'll be a conflict. The emotion gets really high. There's maybe shouting or there's tears or there's, there's just this intensity in terms of emotions being felt. And then there's a seemingly moment of resolution where the intensity quells, like it quiets. And that moment right there is mistaken for intimacy. Like, oh, we have become closer. And we've become more intimate. And there's this depth now to our relationship. And I know now he was sort of describing patterns that are present in codependent relationships, in love addiction, in any kind of addiction really, that sort of intensity and then that coming down. And then there's this sense of, oh, we, we have resolved something. But ultimately the same thing happens again. And then the same thing happens again. And the same thing. And as he, he described this, I was just like, face palm. This is exactly what I'm experiencing there. Because there would be this like intense emotion. And then this sweetness at the end. This sweetness. And I really was like, yeah, I fucking thought that was intimacy. And so I really, in all innocence, said to him like, well, what is intimacy then, if it's not that?
Tracy Stamper:Whew.
Candice Schutter:And again, it's been 20 years, so I don't remember his beautiful response, which I'm sure it was better than this. But what I gleaned was, you know, intimacy is when we show up with vulnerability, and we create space for one another. It's not this[chaos noise] like this, this dramatic, intense, wrestling that then we. It's sort of, you know, it reminds me of? Makeup sex. Right? Makeup sex.
Tracy Stamper:Ding ding.
Candice Schutter:Yeah. We've had this passion and now we're just going to do it. And then like, we come down and like, oh, we've resolved it. Like we haven't resolved shit. We just had really great sex. That's all that happened. Which is fine.
Tracy Stamper:It's the continued. Oh, that's not a bad thing. The intensity is continued throughout that makeup sex.
Candice Schutter:Oh, for sure.
Tracy Stamper:It's still intensity, just of a different flavor which does not necessarily mean it's intimacy.
Candice Schutter:Exactly.
Tracy Stamper:Mm. Wow.
Candice Schutter:So you're in this space where that's being accelerated. It's not happening organically. It's like accelerated. So it's unnatural way of engaging in intimacy. Is this making any sense, Tracy? Cause it's like, there's something about it. It's like this quickening. And then like, suddenly you know these really personal things about other people. And then you're gonna just walk away at the end of seven days, and you're all just going to go your separate ways and that's it. There's an awkwardness to that, and I would imagine as a trainer, especially so, because wouldn't people want to sustain that bond with you? I would imagine.
Tracy Stamper:Absolutely. And that's where the fustercluck happened for me. Because it, it became very clear to me that I did not have the bandwidth to sustain the forced intimacy that arose in the trainings. Which, and I don't wanna speak negatively of that. It, it was very often so beautiful and real. And not sustainable for me. The way that that translated for me personally is oftentimes after an intensive in which I happened to be the trainer. I went back home to my family and to my kiddo who required therapeutic parenting, which is very involved. And at times I would have trainees contact me sometimes in crisis. And I didn't have the bandwidth to.
Candice Schutter:Yeah.
Tracy Stamper:To, to use the language, to hold the space for the intimacy that I had invited in that relationship. And I beat myself up for it because I, the story that I told myself was that I saw other trainers could do it. Other trainers were able to sustain these connections. Other trainers were able to X, Y, and Z. And I used X, Y, and Z to feel less than. Which is fascinating to me now that I realize that those expectations and the dynamic that I set up as a trainer. I do not see those as healthy.
Candice Schutter:So I think it's important to acknowledge, that intensity that people are carrying as well of just feeling invisible or feeling shamed or feeling all those things that we've talked about in earlier episodes. It's just a shit show. It's a mess. And a lot of that's coming from the unwillingness to engage in true intimacy in the name of intimacy, ironically.
Tracy Stamper:Hmm.
Candice Schutter:Right? Again, one, another one of those little mind fucks really. And, and that's the thing I wanted to, to speak to is, I was watching the show, I think it's on Netflix, Call The Midwives. If any of you have seen it. I just started. I've only seen like two episodes. But there was this moment of dialogue that I, I was like, wow, yeah, that's ding, ding, ding. So to set the stage, there's a young woman who's just become a nurse and a midwife and she moves. It's like, I think it was in the 40's is when it's set. And she's become a midwife and she moves to this, sort of like a convent slash hospital where she's going to be a midwife. And she is working underneath a woman who's clearly her elder, her senior, who has all this experience. And they have this interaction, because this new midwife has clearly come from a privileged background. You can just feel it in the way she presents herself and the way that she's showing up in sort of her innocence. And she's moved into this community where there's all this hardship and poverty and where babies are being born into conditions that she finds appalling. And she has this interaction where she goes to support a woman who's pregnant. And the woman has, I wanna say like syphilis or something, like she's got an undiagnosed disease, and she's pregnant with a baby. And there's odor involved. And this midwife is just very like, whoa, like this is just intense. She's never seen anything like it. Which is a very real experience, right? So she goes back to her mentor. And she's scrubbing her hands at the sink. Like she's scrubbing her hands, scrubbing her hands, scrubbing her hands, scrubbing her hands, trying to get the, the filth off of her body.
Tracy Stamper:Hmm.
Candice Schutter:It's a well acted scene, because you can just feel how like she's trying to scrub more than her hands. And she turns to her mentor who's very calm and poised around the whole thing as she's reporting to her everything that was going on with this woman. And the elder very calmly just looks at her and is basically taking in like, oh, wow, she's really kind of in over her head here. And the midwife says to the elder,"I didn't know that this existed." Just disgusted by it. And the elder says."But it does. And this is why we're here."
Tracy Stamper:Ooh.
Candice Schutter:So I want to speak to the way the word intensity is applied to actual, lived, real, justified trauma responses, in these communities. And the way,"that's just reactive. That's just over, that's just, wow, she's a lot." You know, or whatever the thing is. The tone policing around people who are having genuine reactions to stuff and that's like waved away as intensity. That is not what we are talking about here. Because that shit is real and it's justified. Yeah.
Tracy Stamper:Fuck yeah.
Candice Schutter:Yeah. Because it does exist. And that's why we're here. That's why Tracy and I are here. And I know for a fact that there are folks in the communities, the circles that I ran in for a really long time and even friends probably that are on my email list that see my emails come in, see the podcast, and they're like, wow, they're just really focusing on their wounds. And they're just really, you know, stuck in the victim narrative and the story. And we've talked about all this before, so I'm not going to go into the whole thing. Y'all know that energy. And it's in denial of the fact that this exists. And that it's real. And that there's a need for spaces to process and share stories. I feel really passionate about this and enraged sometimes by how much this projection comes at me and us and the work we're doing. And ultimately I don't care, because we're going to keep doing it. But it is annoying sometimes. It's just this sense of like oh that's just, the pearl clutching. And really what I wish people would say, I don't mind if you have a reaction to it. I don't mind if you're like the midwife. I didn't, what, like, what is this? Just say, I didn't know this existed.
Tracy Stamper:That's real.
Candice Schutter:You know, it's like, I get that, yeah. Like I get that you didn't. And there's still stuff that I flinch and cringe around that I need to, you know, human up around. That's privilege though. That's our privilege showing up. That's our blind spot letting us know. Like when we're just want to label it as intense. Is this person really trauma dumping? We might want to use that label even. They're just trauma dumping. It's like, are they really? Or is this an appropriate reaction to the experiences that they've had in their life? Rant over. What do I have? I have a definition here. With trauma dumping"you overshare difficult or intimate personal information without the other person's consent or during inappropriate times. You don't consider how your words impact the listener and you're not open to advice or solutions."
Tracy Stamper:That latter part, yes. Yes, been there, done that.
Candice Schutter:Okay. So slivers of it. But yeah, they're just, those are all things that play into it. So again, there's no like absolute, this is trauma dumping and this isn't. But like, is there a flavor of that in what I'm doing? You know, like, why am I, you know, doing this? I think it's just something to think about. There's no formula here, obviously. Really the whole reason I brought that last piece in was to just make this point, which is that using the example of the midwife and the elder saying,"but it does, this is why we're here." This sense of needing to scrub our hands and clean ourselves of the impurity of the culture around us that is grappling with really hard shit. Like that is, I hate to say it y'all, but that's white supremacy. That's, that's conditioning around purity culture, and and I think that that gets confused. Like I wrote here: Spiritual bypassing isn't a boundary, it's a defense mechanism.
Tracy Stamper:Yes.
Candice Schutter:So, if it's too much, just say it's too much. Don't make it wrong. That's all I'm saying. It's not to say that we have to be able to handle it all, the intensity at all. It's just like, just be honest about what's really happening. Rather than, well, that's not how you should appropriately respond to a situation like that. Like that's, that's a defense mechanism that's being projected onto another person.
Tracy Stamper:Hmm.
Candice Schutter:That's not a boundary. A boundary is, I mean, there's people who've reached out to us who've been in ATO who've said, you know what? I need to take a break from ATO.
Tracy Stamper:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:I need to take a break from ATO because for me right now it's not really helping me to see these stories. We're like, a-fuckin-men. And we say, amen, whatever. Like you don't have to tell us, you take a break. You just leave. Like nobody, there's nobody's gatekeeping. There's also, we've had situations where people have been like, that's not appropriate the way that people are sharing. And it's like, we're like, eh, check that. Cause we're not doing that here. Love you. But is that really what's going on? Is it not appropriate? Or is it just that you need something else? Just say you need something else. It's fine. Like, don't make them wrong for what they're expressing. And that it's"intense" when it is maybe for them, and this is the other piece. Something that might be intensity for you could be an intimacy stepping stone for someone else. We've seen that a lot, right?
Tracy Stamper:Yeah.
Candice Schutter:Where somebody's like, I, like comes on and expresses and vents their anger. And you've got one person who's like, whoa, hair blown back. Too much. Not having that. No, thank you. And then you've got somebody else who's like, thank you!
Tracy Stamper:Yes.
Candice Schutter:Thank you for finally saying that.
Tracy Stamper:Yes. You put words to my experience that I have not been able to grapple with. Thank you. Wow. Yeah.
Candice Schutter:So there's so much nuance here between this like intensity, intimacy, which is what? And just, I guess the two takeaways would be, be conscious of if you're spinning in a cycle and you think it's intimacy and vulnerable connection. And the second piece is really, don't label other people's experience. Which I'm hearing even the, the lesson in that for me. Of like, well, maybe what I think those people are doing over there that I'm calling intensity is intimacy for them. I don't know. But ultimately, we have to answer those questions for ourselves.
Tracy Stamper:Mm-hmm.
Candice Schutter:The final series of excerpts I'm sharing today are from our most recent Patreon drop. The as-promised bonus follow-up conversation with former Org teacher and recent main feed guest, Adi Goren. Adi asked to join Tracy and I once again, this time to more critically deconstruct the hierarchical economy of the Org, why so many of us were willing to work for free, and some of the personal challenges we face when stepping away. Here's more with Adi.
Adi Goren:What started irking me at the point where I was already, um, a higher level belt was that I was no longer receiving the value from structures that were set up financially to remunerate me. And I was, I wanted to make ends meet. I'm a single parent. My daughter was four and a half years old when I started teaching. So, uh, it's not so easy to do all of that and make a living. And I, I just basically wanted to earn money. I'm working and I want to earn money. It's a basic equation. And I realized that the system is set up so that I will never earn a good living. If I'm in the system, it's just not set up that way. At the time that was the truth. So what I realized is that it was kind of like that the pyramid was like a feudal system pyramid. At the top, you have the queen. Then you have property owners, so to speak. And then you would have at the bottom of the pyramid, the peasants. So the role of the peasants was to rent territory, so that they can farm the land. So they're paying to farm land. And they, the crops that they receive. They eat what the little bit that they need for the family, but the rest they give to the landlord. And the landlord gives to the queen. So there's a system that set up to maintain the peasants poor. The middle segment is kind of like well to do. But the queen is benefiting from everybody.
Candice Schutter:And this entitlement of ownership. Like, you know, we're talking about this feudal system. And it's, it's sitting adjacent to and overlapping with a supremacist system in which this sense of ownership and entitlement over. It's like, because of the way the structure is, now we have all of these people who have listened to these podcasts and they're like, what do I do now? And they're so indoctrinated with this idea that they don't own what they've embodied because of this structure. This is exactly, I mean, aside from, you know, the, the ins and outs of the teachings that went sideways and were misused. This idea that, like, everything belongs to the Org. And to such a degree that they will get greedier and greedier and greedier and greedier. Yes, that too. Yes, that as well. And also that. Oh, yeah, and that, and that, and that, and that, and that. And so now when people face this choice of walking away and their eyes are open to the dynamics, then they're like, but I have to let all of this go, because it belongs to them. We can say until we're blue in the face. No, it doesn't. But it's such a process that we've, all three of us have been through of really pulling that knot apart and like, the gauzyness of that, of just being like, what even belongs to me here? And I might as well stick around and feed the queen, because the only way for me to have access to any of this is to stay connected to this brand and to feed the queen. I can't have any honey. It all belongs to the queen. I have to work for her.
Adi Goren:So, I want to also talk about the fact that the Org is predominantly women. And there is just something so easy to abuse women's work. That, we would do stuff for free. We would do it because we are feeling called to. And we wouldn't mind doing it for free. So, the ridiculousness of having a trainer come and, uh, get 1, 600 for the trainee. Now, all of us teachers would feel so sorry for these new upcoming teachers. So we would want to mentor them and train them and help them along. But gosh, not that we would want to like shake them down some more. They've already spent a small fortune. So now we do a lot of work for free or for nothing. And at some point I also wouldn't do it for nothing. But when the economy is based on, many women who are willing to do it for nothing, that becomes standard. So, me wanting to get paid for my time and my energy, which was, again, from my personal life, being a single parent, it was a really hard time to manage my time. And if I'm going to invest my energy in somebody. I want to get an income from it.
Candice Schutter:Yeah.
Adi Goren:So, I would be made to feel like I'm being unfair or greedy.
Candice Schutter:Yeah.
Adi Goren:Because I wanted to get paid.
Tracy Stamper:I was just going to ask that, if since the indoctrination was in the other direction that we would all it was a higher calling and we give it up for free. I was really wondering with wondering what you may have met in terms of a pushback when you said, hey, I've got a kid here. I've got to make a living. This is what I've chosen to do. I would imagine that some heat came your way.
Adi Goren:I just remember, I remember telling one of my colleagues. Like years later, we were talking. And, uh, I remember she was shaming me a little bit. She was saying, you know, I did all of this for free. You know, I also have children. I I'm also busy, but I did it for free. Kind of like, I'm a bigger person than you are, Adi.
Candice Schutter:Right. That's like deep in our DNA, regardless of culture, like in women's DNA, I feel like. It's that, the self sacrificing is sort of the highest calling.
Tracy Stamper:To clarify, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that when I left this circle, I did kind of scamper over here and my world has been much, much smaller. There are a whole host of the most amazing, mostly women, in St. Louis, who I met through having done the Org work. I used to do women's retreats with over 100 women that a friend of mine organized. And after I left, she invited me to come as a participant and just. She knew what I had been through, and she asked me to come as a participant and just relax and enjoy the offerings of, you know, all the other instructors who came. And I haven't gone because being in that circle would require having the same conversation. Oh, do you still teach or? So instead of staying in these circles where I felt very connected to amazing folks. My world has become much smaller now.
Adi Goren:It's a heavy price to pay. I feel that's a very heavy price to pay. It broke something in my trust. Even people, people that are now in the Org. And we're somehow, maybe they were trainees of a person that I was an adversary of. Um, so in my mind, they are on her side. And even if they're reaching out. They've never met me. They don't know me. If they're reaching out to me, I don't trust building a relationship with anybody who's been affiliated with her. That's, that's how it fucked me up. It's so fucked up. I mean, I mean, I can't let that go. I'm still afraid of getting stabbed in the back, of having a maneuver done on me, of being manipulated or being hurt. I just don't want any of it. So the price of it is losing connections, even potential good connections. I feel that's a heavy price to pay.
Tracy Stamper:It is. It's very isolating and lonely. It can be lonely.
Candice Schutter:I feel that in just a general sense with. You know, I'm so far removed from the Org at this point. I don't really have a, an Org community to have any remnants of tension with. But I feel that with the, um, the wellness and spirituality culture. Like what you all described, I feel that with the larger. Which is a huge, huge aspect of the culture of Sedona. I don't feel like I can really be myself here. Because if I say what I really think, it's going to be like a record scratch in the room. And so then I need to just, sort of, edit what I'm saying. And it's just, the whole thing is so exhausting that I just opt out all the time. And so I feel that similar, again, that moral injury. Because some people might listen to this and be like, well, just go be yourself. It doesn't matter. And that sounds really simple again, like peace and healing sounds really simple. But it's not that simple. Because if I want to forge connection and I bring my authenticity and there's immediate dissonance that emerges, then that's just more work for me. That's not connective. That's just more work. And for them. You know, I don't really want to make people feel judged with my opinions. Yet if I keep some of them to myself, I feel like I'm in a box and I'm not being real. So, okay, I'll just, again, small. My, my community is through these screens. That's just where it's at right now.
Adi Goren:I feel that's, um. It's, it's heartbreaking when you shared. I, I, I felt every word you said, Candice. And it's not my first, uh, uh. It's not the first time I feel this way. I think this is kind of like the Org is like a new, um, manifestation of this. It's, it's... Um, I'd like to think that it's kind of like somebody who's been through great grief, um, or great loss that, um, hanging around with happy, happy, lucky people, um, just can feel like they, they get. And if you show up with your emotions and your grief and it's kind of like, wow, you're bringing everybody down hard.
Candice Schutter:Such a great parallel.
Adi Goren:You feel the, you feel the ravine between you. And I think there's a lot of trauma. And that's why this, this sharing with the two of you and with the podcast is so healing. Is to know I'm not alone. We're not alone. And hopefully, what I'm hoping, and I think it's maybe a little bit, um, wishful thinking. I'm hoping that people will hear my story. And, uh, maybe that would help with some more repair with relationships.
Candice Schutter:Oh yeah.
Tracy Stamper:I'm hoping that for you too.
Candice Schutter:Me as well. If you're interested in exploring any of the episodes featured in today's sampler in their entirety, consider becoming a patron of the pod. Donations are sliding scale and you can join for as little as five dollars a month. You can even explore bonus content through a seven day free trial. Bonus episodes feature audio and video content. They can be watched on YouTube, or listened to through the Patreon app or your favorite podcasting platform. Transcripts of each episode are also made available. Head to patreon.com/thedeeperpulse to learn more, and I'll see you back here next week with the final episode in the'cult'ure series lineup. Thanks for tuning in and bye for now.
