How Being In A Cult Prepared Me For Covid

What Relationships Can Teach Us About Difference, Truth, and Belonging

There are moments in life when you discover that belonging can cost you pieces of yourself. Moments when speaking your truth feels risky and fitting in feels safer. I learned this long before Covid.

I had my first piece published in a book in June 2024. The book is a collection of essays and mine is titled: “How Being In A Cult Prepared Me For Covid”.

And the amazing-extraordinary-and-huge-hearted editor of said book Jenna McCarthy, featured my piece on her Substack. You can read it in its entirety here.

I’m gonna be honest with you…I’ve written before about having been in a cult but I mostly steer clear of anything political, us vs. them, and Lord knows I don’t write about controversial topics like covid or vaccines. Because…I am a “you do you” kind of a gal.

Imagine my surprise when my “you do you-ness” and my “my body my choice-ness” landed me in a camp that I never thought that I would be in before in my life (the tinfoil hat kind).

And yet..there I was doing what I have made a career out of as a marriage therapist for years:

• Consciously choosing not to make anyone wrong.
• Honoring the difficult and complicated decisions that people were making.
• Trusting that the strife and conflict would bear fruit in the end because THAT is what the rigor of being human is all about.

I have sat with couples who have had affairs, who have embezzled money, who have said and done incredibly painful things to their “beloveds”…and I do not judge.

I do not judge because I know that each of us bring our own perspectives and beliefs to everything that we choose and as INSANE as it might look…the person making the choice that they are making is doing it for their own good reason.

And that reason, if you choose to get curious (a foundational tool in marriage counseling – Stay Curious) might just surprise you. It will definitely stretch you if you are willing to BOTH be in loving relationship with someone AND be available for their difference.

Welcome to long-term committed relationships, ya’ll.

For me, THAT is some serious higher-self-love-in-action right there!

In January 2024, I decided that I was going to really take a swing at being a writer and my first piece has been published in a book with the words “conspiracy theorist” in the title. <– I seriously did not think I would be accepted…submitted just for fun. And bam.

Accepted.

Life is hilarious. 🤪

My husband said, “That’s great…come out as BOTH an ex-cult member AND a conspiracy theorist….”

Yeah…pretty much.

I almost didn’t write this post at all because I wondered if it was “off-brand” and then I realized that there is no way for me to be “off” when I am my own brand!

The only way to be off is if I stop being myself since my ENTIRE point here is to support women in transition as they reconnect with themselves and live in alignment with who you truly are…whatever that truth is for you. It is not mine to say.

Many women, especially during midlife transitions, begin realizing that they have spent years adapting, performing, fitting in, and making themselves understandable to others. Eventually there comes a moment where the deeper question emerges: What is true for me?

I firmly believe that our future is NOT an us vs. them future.

It is a future of sacred union with the masculine and the feminine. The right and the left. The up and the down…and everything in between. Because WHO WE BECOME in this union-making is the new future that we are are hungry for.

Collective union is not about watering down your you-ness either!

It is about the rigor of maturation that our very adolescent cult-ure needs some growing-upedness around. Largely, humanity in the U.S. can behave badly when it comes to difference…even those who tout the value of celebrating difference get touchy about kinds of difference that don’t align with their specific difference-loving-values.

It an be confusing, I know.

As a torchbearer for women (and men), I get to go first.

I get to go first in how I show up. What I am willing to say, do, believe, and be in the world. I shine a light for women in midlife and seasons of transition so you can find your way back home to yourself. And once you are home and you cozy up to that voice of yours, you too can start to speak those glorious words of truth in your own marriage, relationships, business life, family life, and in your community.

You can start to honor your own internal knowing that might just set you apart from others. Once you connect to your knowing, you might begin to speak what feels like your inner truth and then feel what it feels like to take that truth on the road out in the world.

And when you take ALL OF YOU into your life…woooooosh. Get ready.

It’s scary, I know.

In this world where journalist, politicians, and “leaders” name call, cancel, and extinguish others

simply

for

being

themselves.

It can feel down right terrifying to name your own self into existence. So often it feels better to just not. To let others define you. To go with the flow. To not make a fuss.

What a moment we are in that one’s own self-defining can exile them from the belonging that we all crave with our bones.

What a moment to be human when the us vs. them propaganda is fueled and funded by invisible machines that somehow benefit from our division.

And of course, since I am a believer of the adage, ‘as above, so below’, I know that the external divisiveness is just a symptom of the divisiveness that so many of us feel inside of our own selves.

The answer? Sacred Union.

You with you. Your wholeness. Your inclusion of all of your parts. Your own tender and compassionate gaze toward yourself. Your own willingness to listen to the parts of you that might want to color outside of the lines in your own life.

Embodied leadership is not about just writing about this stuff. It’s about being it. And that is uncomfortable and sometimes even terrifying . But I’m doing it anyway.

What parts of yourself do you exile because they don’t fit or are too much trouble?

How have you canceled parts of yourself in your own life?

Where are you unpracticed at listening to your own truth — especially when it might run counter to the truth of others in your life?

What might happen in your life if you started to listen, express and follow your own truth.

---

Reflections

Why do women lose trust in themselves?

Women often learn to prioritize belonging, approval, and expectations over their own inner knowing.

Why is self-trust important in relationships?

Healthy relationships allow room for difference, curiosity, and authentic expression.

Can relationships survive differing beliefs?

Many relationships grow stronger when partners learn how to stay connected despite disagreement.

How do women reconnect with themselves?

Reconnection often begins by listening to emotions, values, desires, and truths that have been ignored.