The Life After Podcast

You Are Your Own (Embodied Trauma x Healing) with Jamie Lee Finch

Fan-favorite Jamie Lee Finch returns to the show! She joins Chuck and Brady to discuss her new book on Religious Trauma Syndrome from Christian Evangelicalism, "You are Your Own." They discuss her experience writing, the unresolved trauma held by our bodies, instilled fear of hell, needs they had as Evangelical children, generational responses to Fundamentalism, cycles that keep people locked in the faith, wanting to die for a cause (thanks, Jesus Freaks!), healing through storytelling, and how trauma responses manifested recently in the post-evangelical online community. 
Visit Jamie's website to buy "You Are Your Own" as an ebook or audiobook: https://jamieleefinch.com
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

Contact Evangelism (Childhood Religious OCD x Intention Communities) with Nikki Mayeux

Guest Nikki Mayeux joins Chuck and Brady to dish on reality house dramas🔥, childhood religious OCD and anxiety😟, intrusive thoughts😵, contact evangelism🏈, inner voice♾️, faith deconstructing while married👫, and intentional communities 🗑️ (Crust Punks for Jesus?)!
 
Episode begins with a timely message to women from Chuck.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

Cults Inside Out (Deprogramming x High Pressure Communities) with Rick Alan Ross

Renowned cult deprogrammer and expert Rick Alan Ross Ross joins Chuck, Brady and special guest host Corey Pigg (Season 1, Episode 20, host of Failed Missionary) to discuss the everything related to harmful cult communities. From how to define a cult and how they work, to assessing what is and isn’t a cult, to discussions about the effects of cults on politics and popular culture. Ross is a dynamic thinker, a clear communicator, and a true expert in his field.
Rick Alan Ross is the author of Cults Inside Out, the founder and executive director of the Cult Education Institute (culteducation.com), has acted as an expert cult consultant for everything from best-selling video game Far Cry 5, to Television and Movies. Rick has intervened in over 500 deprogramming cases aimed at getting people out of dangerous cults.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

Leaving the Fold (Religious Trauma x Breaking Free) with Marlene Winell, PhD

Dr. Marlene Winell (human development consultant, educator, and writer) joins Chuck and Brady to discuss her life-changing book, "Leaving the Fold," and her ground-breaking research on Religious Trauma Syndrome.
They discuss how and why people are often trapped in Christian Fundamentalism and most importantly, how to break free and recover.
Visit Marlene's website to learn more about Religious Trauma Syndrome, to purchase your copy of "Leaving the Fold," and to sign up for one of her up-coming weekend retreats for people recovering from oppressive religion: https://journeyfree.org
 
Happy Deconstructing!
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

Religion of Trauma (Biblical Origins x Psychedelics) with Andrew Jasko

Andrew Jasko (lifeafterdogma.org) joins Chuck and Brady. He tells his story growing up passionate about Christian Fundamentalism and leaving it all behind. They discuss the Charismatic Movement, damage of sexual repression, the mind-blowing origins of Yahweh and El, how humans respond to suffering, and how the Bible seems to have been pieced together as a response to societal trauma.
Andrew ends by talking about the healing he is finding in psychedelics, meditation, and Eastern Spirituality.
Andrew's Story: Andrew's father was an Assembly of God pastor. Before he was born, Andrew was prophesied to be a spiritual warrior. As he grew up, he planned to win 1,000,000,000 souls to Jesus. His whole life pointed toward a future as a pastor or missionary. He got a Theology degree from Wheaton College and worked on another at Princeton. He had plans to go to India and start saving the world. But things weren't adding up.
A faith that promised joy was exhausting him. His doubts got louder, but most of all, he clearly saw how the faith, despite its use of language about peace, produced never-ending anxiety.
Andrew reluctantly studied and gave air to his doubts. Though losing one's faith feels like dying, he kept going. Driven to improve his mental health, he sought to understand how the faith kept him for so long and how he can heal.
Understanding how humans respond to trauma changed his life. He saw similar patterns in the Bible's history. Psychedelics and Eastern Spirituality gave him a new sense of purpose and understanding his life after dogma. He writes about spiritual healing on his blog and coaches others to heal from spiritual trauma.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

Conversion Therapy 2: Going Gay (Ex-Gay Movement x Finding Yourself) with Tim Rymel

Last season, Chuck and Brady spoke with Curtis, who lived through gay conversion therapy. This season, a former leader of Love in Action (gay conversion therapy) and author, Tim Rymel, tells his experience.
TW: This episode can be triggering for those who had to disassociate from their sexuality to survive in Evangelical envirnoments and others.
Tim promoted the notorious gay conversion therapy organization he helped organize and led. But over the years, he realized that the organization wasn't honest. His inquisitive mind compelled him to keep asking questions and not making excuses when there was no good answer to be found. In addition to leaving Love in Action, Tim eventually left the faith he always knew.
But that is where he found himself.
 
The episode includes several gripping coming out stories.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

The Way I Am (Liberal Christianity x Musical Expression) with Jennifer Knapp

Grammy-nominated songwriter, author, and advocate Jennifer Knapp joins the show to discuss coming out, liberal Christianity, and her music career.
Jennifer Knapp runs Inside Out Faith, a non-profit focused on confronting non-affirming churches to encourage more inclusive faith communities. Her memoir, “Facing the Music: My Story,” is available on Amazon, and she is promoting her newest album “Love Comes Around,” which can be found on Spotify, Apple Music, and wherever you stream music. For more information, you can visit her website: Jenniferknapp.org.
The Life After Podcast and Community | We hold space for people leaving Christian Fundamentalism.
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

Deliver Us From Your People (Spiritual Abuse x Therapy) with Angie Jay

TW: This episode includes mentions of sexual abuse, extreme spiritual abuse, and a suicide attempt.
Angie Jay, spiritual abuse survivor and political activist, joins Chuck and Brady to share her horrifying Evangelical experience when she served as a missions intern at the age of 18. Far from home and family, the missions organization leadership forced her to describe -- in mixed company and with great detail -- the long history of sexual abuse she had experienced, which started when she was only 2, in order to "heal." When the leaders felt Angie wasn't responding to their abusive counsel in the way they wanted, the main male leader took the situation to a horrifying new level. Her told her the sexual abuse left a demon in her that he needed to remove. And, without her consent, that's what he attempted to do.
The complex nightmare continues when she returned home and much of her home church leadership believed her abusers over her or showed her no empathy.
Listen to see how Angie discovered a better life after on this episode of The Life After Podcast, hosted by Chuck Parson and Brady Hardin.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

Exvangelical with Blake Chastain (Season 2 Premiere)

Blake Chastain of #Exvangelical Podcast joins Chuck and Brady to discuss his life after.
 
Find links for The Life After Community (our secret Facebook group), subscribing, rating, and/or reviewing on iTunes here: linkin.bio/thelifeafterorg

I Thought I was the Only One Season One Finale (Belonging x Deconstruction) with Joey Hill

Chuck and Brady interview a new friend they met purely because of the show, Joey Hill. Joey shares his story of overcoming a gauntlet of obstacles after leaving harmful religion. Determined to keep going, Joey found a unique way to shape his future… but it didn’t go as planned. Brady and Joey discuss how hard it is to bounce back from leaving religion, especially for those who built their futures around plans of being in the ministry. But over time, Joey found his footing and kept going and going and...
After their interview with Joey, Chuck and Brady take time to reflect on what the first season of the podcast has meant to them, sandwiched by audio messages left by the wonderful listeners.