Show Notes
- Rediscovering herself after leaving — Bec talks about the long, messy process of rebuilding a sense of self after leaving a high-control organisation, and learning to recognise her own values, feelings, and desires again.
- Learning to trust her own inner compass — She explores the importance of listening to herself, recognising internal dissonance, and developing the ability to trust her own judgement rather than relying on an external authority.
- Recovery as an ongoing process — Bec challenges the idea that recovery has a clear endpoint, describing it instead as continually “harmonising” herself as her environment and understanding of herself change.
- Pain, confusion, and anxiety as signs of waking up — She reframes the difficult emotions that can follow leaving a cult, suggesting that confusion, anxiety, and internal conflict can be evidence that a person’s own sense of self is beginning to return.
- Finding freedom through the body and the present moment — Bec discusses climbing, mountain biking, cycling, and paragliding as ways of reconnecting with herself, responding instinctively to her environment, and experiencing the present without external judgement.
- Letting go of blame and “ultimate responsibility” — She challenges the idea that people should blame themselves for becoming involved in high-control relationships, explaining how circumstances, environments, histories, and skilled manipulation all shape the choices people make.
- What she wants people leaving cults to know — Bec emphasises that being involved in a cult is not a personal weakness or failure, and that feelings of terror, confusion, and anxiety after leaving can be part of a healthy system waking back up.
Transcript
00:41 Welcome back to Unspun, the podcast where we unravel the threads of life inside high control groups and cults. We explore what recovery can look like on the other side. Today we’re joined by Beck Songkila, who spent six years inside Mesa, a Romanian yoga cult with a global reach and a guru who is currently imprisoned on serious criminal charges.
01:05 She got out, then she spent years figuring out what that actually meant, not just leaving, but rebuilding a self that has been systematically dismantled. That process became her work. Beck is a relationship and recovery coach, specialing in coercive control, postcult identity, and the kind of intimacy that nobody teaches you. The difference between connection and compliance, between desire and obligation.
01:33 Between a relationship that expands you and one that slowly erases you. Her approach is practical, body-based, and grounded in lived experience rather than textbooks. She draws on hypnotherapy, somatic work, and over a decade of deep study in human psychology and relational dynamics. She works with people who are done, being confused, about why their relationships feel wrong.
01:58 And ready to understand what it what right actually feels like. Beck is very intrepid and splits her time between New Zealand, Australia and Finland. She works with clients internationally and is currently writing about her occult experience and the long road back to a self you can trust. I’m so excited that you’re here, Beck. This conversation will be released as a two-part
02:22 Episode in part one, Beck shares her personal story, what drew her into Mesa, what life was like inside the group, and the experiences that ultimately led her to leave. It’s an honest and courageous conversation about identity, belonging, and finding the strength to rebuild a life beyond a high control environment. In part two
02:44 We take the conversation in a broader direction, drawing on Beck’s experiences, we explore body connection, desire, sexuality, consent, and what it means to reconnect with ourselves after living in an environment where these aspects of life can become deeply shaped by external beliefs and control. This is Beck’s story.
03:08 Welcome Bex. I’m super excited that you’re here with us today.
03:12 It’s such a pleasure to be here. Thanks for inviting me and thanks for being fascinated with my story.
03:18 yeah, it’s a great story and I guess I know you on a bit of a personal level as well and yeah, it’s really exciting to have this conversation with you ’cause I think you’re really amazing and interesting to talk to. So that’s another bonus. I’m wondering if we just start with gaining a bit of understanding about the cult that you were involved in. like maybe give us a brief interview.
03:42 I’m sorry, overview of Mesa.
03:45 Misa. Mesa, known by many names in many countries, although it originated in Romania, Misa, the movement for spiritual integration into the absolute is what that stands for.
03:56 Wow.
03:57 On paper, it’s a Romanian yoga school headed by Gregorian Bivalaru, a Romanian man, the founder. And it was founded nearly 30 years ago. And he was arrested in 2023 in France as part of a massive investigation, 144 police.
04:13 Police officers all over France in a in a huge bust that have arrested a bunch of people, some of which are still in prison, one of which is GB, that’s how we like to refer him, to him post
04:24 Yeah.
04:25 as an ex-member. And that’s sort of the headliner version that he was there was an investigation into trafficking and sexual exploitation arrested in 2023, ongoing invest ongoing investigations. The the legal case has not been heard yet.
04:40 Here here it is and and what I really want people to understand about this group, it’s i it’s it’s it’s that I didn’t walk in to be a member of a cult. I wasn’t looking for a cult. And no nobody does. I I walked into a yoga school,
04:51 Yeah. Exactly, yeah.
04:53 I was seeking human connections to do better, what was important in life, what’s worthwhile. I had
05:00 Yeah.
05:00 looking for higher values and I was asking people what a higher value even was. I walked into breath work, into body work, into optimizing my physical, mental and emotional condition and checking that
05:12 Yeah.
05:12 with other people. Am I actually more balanced and with myself? What are the outcomes I can achieve? And I was
05:18 Yeah.
05:19 already doing many practices for that for many, many years prior to MISA.
05:23 And I’d spent nearly twenty years before Mesa as a naturopath and as a personal trainer and a breath work instructor and a body worker.
05:31 Yeah.
05:32 so my entire life orientation was around
05:35 what my body knows and developing my body knowledge and to trust what it tells me and not to override it. And that’s exactly
05:43 Yeah.
05:43 the door that a cult comes through. And it’s these high control groups, it it catches your attention, selling you the exact thing miraculously that you’re looking for. That’s right. And and
05:52 That you’re looking for, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.
05:57 then it and then it slowly
06:01 moves your compass so it points to them to to this other value system and you end up operating for for their value system under their motives under their directorate and not your own
06:12 Yeah.
06:12 anymore your voice is usurped swapped out for theirs and it’s
06:17 Yes.
06:18 the your own voice that you learn to trust you can’t hear it anymore and you end up wearing theirs.
06:24 Yeah. W so what originally drew you into it?
06:28 Well, like I said, I was looking for what was worthwhile in the world. I’d been practicing a long time yoga and these biohacking things and breath work. I was feeling great, sleeping less, eating light, f feeling amazing, I was more emotionally
06:38 Yes, yeah. I love biohacking. Yeah.
06:44 balanced than my parents, which was a big goal than I had ever been. I’d got on
06:49 Mm.
06:49 top of those things that we want to get on top of. I wasn’t getting, you know, angry or losing my
06:55 sell my s stuff about things that were irrelevant, about the traffic or this and that. Everything in life seemed to flow and glow. It was beautiful and amazing. And I just wanted
07:05 Yeah.
07:06 more and I wanted to consolidate it and I wanted to share it because I thought, why is it we don’t understand why we suffer? Why is it we don’t understand how the way our like how I den our identity false identities disrupt our relationships with others. So I just
07:21 Yes.
07:22 I
07:22 I wanted more of that and I was offered that and yet it was
07:25 Yeah.
07:26 not what was given.
07:28 Yeah. A and was it initially through a yoga practice that drew you in or?
07:34 Like what was the what was the connection point? I mean it
07:34 Was it a initial practice?
07:37 Yeah, or the connection point, yeah.
07:39 It’s really just mundane stuff. Like everyone, I I was happened to be in India for twenty eleven
07:45 Yeah.
07:45 eleven eleven eleven. I had gone to a kind of festival
07:48 Mm.
07:49 there because I thought it would be nice. It was full of like singing and people meditating and doing yoga and I just thought it would be lovely for my birthday n in 2011 to in November to be in India, somewhere I’d never been,
08:03 Yeah.
08:04 with a bunch of people feeling good with each other, sharing beautiful energy, beautiful breath.
08:09 Feelings, and
08:10 Yeah.
08:10 I just thought that would be a great experience. I’d always wanted to travel India,
08:13 Yeah.
08:14 and then I came across this class in Rishikesh with a man called Andre Popper, and I felt what he was saying aligned with the kinds of books that I was reading, and then we did some
08:24 Yeah.
08:24 meditations together, and I felt like it was a really powerful experience, and so I stayed for just a little bit more, and just a little bit more led to a little bit more.
08:34 And what I didn’t understand at the time is that I thought this inner compass, this inner knowing that I’d been cultivating my h whole life couldn’t be usurped. I thought it was something that was a birthright, truly fundamental, truly
08:45 Yeah, that makes sense. Mm. Yeah.
08:50 stable. And so I felt in the beginning I could see the distinction between when he was saying something true and when he was saying something untrue in order to manipulate me or or
09:02 you know, throw praise over me to make me feel good for some other cause and I I thought I could shir sh shirk it off. I thought I could shrug that off. Like that’s not relevant,
09:10 Yeah no.
09:11 but this is relevant. But what I didn’t realise at the time and what I know now is that this
09:17 these kinds of the these kinds of communication structures because of how human behavior works in social environments, we are changed by it regardless of our skepticism, regardless of
09:30 Yeah.
09:30 our idea that it’s not our value system, regardless of the view that it’s not for me, you will still do as the social structure commands that you do, no matter what your belief
09:40 Yeah.
09:41 system. And that’s how that’s how these organizations work. And even if it’s not that thing that
09:45 Yeah. It’s very, very
09:46 You do,
09:47 clever. Yeah.
09:48 it’s this other thing that you do. It’s like, well, I
09:50 Mm.
09:51 saw that coming, but lo and behold, underneath it, you’re doing these other behaviors that the organization is inviting you to do,
09:57 Yeah.
09:58 and then you have to confabulate in your mind why you did it. but that didn’t really cost me anything, or that was fine, or I I that that’s
10:05 Yeah.
10:06 not really an issue. And so in hindsight, you you can pick these things out, but we’re getting ahead of ourselves now into Yeah, into how the
10:12 We are, we are indeed. It’s great though.
10:15 I love what you’re saying. It makes total sense and you I it feels like you really get the nuances of how people are slowly indoctrinated over time. Yeah. So who
10:28 Yeah.
10:29 have how who have the power in this group?
10:32 Well, all cults are run by singular heads. That’s the
10:35 Yeah.
10:36 nature of a cultic organization. They’re a toxic social structure that doesn’t value the individuals. It
10:43 Yeah.
10:43 values a singular head. So in this case I named him Gregorian Bivalaru.
10:47 Yeah.
10:47 And under him are what’s called in the cultiverse, lieutenants. So the other people that
10:53 Right.
10:54 hold the doctrine together. But none of those really
10:57 Yeah.
10:57 hold any power and if they do they’re
11:00 Well, they’re torn down and caused to leave. And I saw many instances
11:04 Right.
11:04 where people who had devoted their entire adult lives to Gregorian Vivilaru were pushed to tears in his presence to hum and humiliated in front of
11:15 Yeah.
11:15 people much, let’s say, lower or you know, people who had just joined n in a way that was really clearly
11:24 Arranged.
11:25 deeply distressing for that person and for no
11:28 Yeah.
11:28 real visible reason, except
11:30 Right.
11:31 understood in cult dynamics to to take power over and to take power away from, to humiliate, to distort, to gain control.
11:39 Put them in their place.
11:41 Mm.
11:42 Yeah.
11:42 were there different roles for men and women or was it pretty egalitarian?
11:48 One of the central common threads in cultic organizations are the many rules.
11:53 And now we jump ahead to how a cult actually functions. And there are many, many, many rules in all cultic organizations, no matter if they’re a church, a yoga organization, or a small individual family. And what one finds out through deconstructing how cults work is that those rules are generally the same across the board through the organizations, controlling how genders behave.
12:22 what they wear, what you can say and can’t say, who you say it to, in what way and when, and what you do with your life. And there’s different rules for the head of the organization and the members and there’s hierarchies in the organization. And also a common feature of cultic organizations is how those seemingly extremely strict unbending rules completely change and swap at
12:45 Well, at the
12:45 Yeah.
12:46 at the at the behest of the leader of the organisation. So, yeah, of course there’s different rules for different genders on different days of the week. You know, in Mesa they had some fantastic ones you could eat.
12:58 you could eat egg was it egg yellows or egg whites, but not the you could eat y egg yellows but not egg whites, since those thousands of people are separating their eggs and swearing that one part of the
13:08 Yeah, yeah.
13:09 eggs. You could eat tomatoes but not the skin. You could, you know,
13:12 Yeah.
13:12 eat cream cake and sugar but you couldn’t
13:16 but yeah, but you couldn’t do other things. It was it was insanity. Vomiting was
13:22 Yeah.
13:23 well supported. Drink ten litres of salt water and puke every morning so you can get out the toxins, but eat cream cakes till you’re ten kilos heavier because G B likes chubby girls. Whatever.
13:35 Right.
13:36 So
13:37 Those cracks, when did they start to appear for you?
13:40 The the first the first flinches and doubts and and clashes inside were were physical and they’d been going on since the very beginning. It never
13:50 Right.
13:51 actually settled. Like there were
13:52 Yeah.
13:53 really beautiful experiences and really lovely teachings that I thought, wow, that’s so beautiful. But there was a a seed in me that thought, yeah.
14:02 Read that in a book, or yeah, that was nicely delivered information, or wow, that’s a really spectacularly beautiful experience and heartfelt loving connection with the person. Yet that doesn’t make a spiritual path, or that doesn’t mean that this is the right way to go. There was always this inner friction. My body had been pulling back and pushing against my mind and
14:27 like parts of the l do we call it a school or a practice? Let’s just call it a cult. Parts of the cult from the very beginning. But I had put that on pause. I pushed it back and I said, look, let’s just see. You know, it’s ridiculous to think I should agree with every part of this organization. So there wasn’t this is so amazing and then there was a moment of flinch. Outwardly
14:49 Yeah, outwardly I was like, this is amazing. They’re doing incredible things. This is so beautiful. And some parts were really very beautiful and some parts were really very weird. I even heard I I had heard a Buddhist teacher on on that l speaking to Sam Harris once saying that he had joined this organization and it was never really a natural fit for him, this Buddhist studies.
15:15 And they’d been talking about past lives and he’d never really got it or believed in it and he was told by a teacher to him, well, if that bit’s not for you, just let that pass by and take the bits that work. And I was working on that principle. But
15:29 Yeah,
15:29 kind of it it helps you s to suspend that kind of critical side of them or the critical
15:35 I did
15:35 suspend the I did suspend parts, but what
15:39 Yeah.
15:40 I didn’t know, what I didn’t understand, which we’ll uncover in this interview, is that the time I took suspending those doubts, I was able to be I was able to have my value system swapped out for theirs. I thought I would come back to my value system and say, okay, now
16:00 Yeah.
16:00 I have this data and that data.
16:02 what is actually working and what isn’t. But by the time I had enough data,
16:04 What can we marry together?
16:06 I no longer had a body I could feel. And that’s really when
16:09 Yeah.
16:10 we’re talking about what was the first flinch, the flinch and reaction and resistance was there for a long time until I started to r f un until I had no real stable inner universe to trust. But then
16:23 Probably.
16:24 the dis the inner discomfort was so intense I had to do something about that. So
16:28 Right.
16:29 Yeah.
16:29 What did you know in that moment that you hadn’t been ready to admit?
16:33 The moment that
16:33 Okay, so
16:34 The moment of
16:35 The moment of realising that that you were your body was in this state and you’re like,
16:40 I guess realization.
16:42 There were quite a few moments to tell the truth, but one was I had reached out to GB because this teacher in India had been behaving in a way that I felt was rape. I felt legally
16:56 Yeah.
16:56 in my country what he’s doing is rape, what he’s doing is at least sexual assault, and w people, mostly women, who
17:04 And men, though, were turned away from their spiritual path, from seeking. They were given bad experiences and left with a bad taste in their mouth and I felt
17:12 Yeah.
17:12 sad and sorry for that imprint that it could be years or maybe never that those people would come back around to personal growth. And I’ve been reaching out to G B about the behaviour of this teacher,
17:24 And in response I was no longer welcome to attend classes. In fact, I received a quite long scathing letter where I was told, You are not a yogi, you are not a woman, you are not human.
17:38 had a huge impact.
17:39 Yeah. And the impact it that it had was I thought, yeah. I thought, yeah, yeah, you’re right. I’m not a yogi. You’re not my guru. This path is not for me.
17:50 Whatever it is that I thought I was doing with my letter to you before, that wasn’t real. What is real is what I feel in this moment. And that was a lot of discomfort. There was so much
18:01 Yeah, bad.
18:03 inner static and intense feelings. It was an extreme physical experience, actually.
18:09 Right. Yeah. How did it manifest
18:11 They
18:12 to you physically? Is that can I ask?
18:14 How did it manifest for me physically? Well
18:17 Mm.
18:17 we’re talk what we’re talking about here is words that I discovered later in my
18:21 Yeah.
18:22 recovery. And it’s not until I had a scaffold to hang what I was feeling on that I had words for it. At that time all
18:30 Yeah.
18:30 I had was like inner static. I had inner pain. I felt sick, I felt confused, I felt distressed,
18:38 Yeah.
18:39 I felt
18:39 like fearful, frightened. I didn’t know who to talk to, who I shouldn’t talk to, I
18:43 Yeah
18:44 didn’t know where to turn. And yet in that moment
18:46 Here.
18:46 when I received that letter, I felt profoundly present. Very clear, very clear that I that where I was going was something I knew and not something he knew. So not something that group was giving me.
19:00 Yeah. Not something they were
19:02 impressing upon you anymore.
19:04 Yeah, I just understood right then and there. It no longer was well
19:08 Yeah.
19:09 maybe they do know and I just don’t know that they do know or I don’t have enough data yet or I haven’t tried hard enough. I just knew I just knew right then and there
19:18 Yeah.
19:18 right. They’re not who they say
19:19 done with the
19:20 they are.
19:20 Yeah, yeah, like really starkly came into focus.
19:24 Yeah.
19:25 Yeah. And it so in terms of the next step, was that the moment when you were like, okay, I’m out or was it a long, hard extraction process or
19:39 Look, the next steps are just long, long. Because yeah, I was expelled. They had to throw me out. I would have killed
19:47 Right.
19:48 myself in that organization if they hadn’t have thrown me out. So they had to throw me out for me to realise then
19:54 They’re not out for my best interest, they’re out for their best interest and I’m no longer useful, I guess. And yet still
19:58 Yeah. Hmm.
20:00 I had my doubts for a quite a while. I couldn’t frame G B as
20:06 not helpful on some level. I had to see him as good because the process is so long and painful. It’s a long way to go from this isn’t working for me to to I have
20:16 I have overridden my own body singles signals for so long. I have caused myself damage. And then watch that, watch that, because that’s a very dangerous thought. I have hurt myself. No,
20:27 Yeah.
20:28 they that organization has swapped out my value systems.
20:33 deliberately for theirs and told me to ignore my own inner feelings, to ignore what I believe, what feels good for me, what feels healthy to me, and they
20:42 Yeah.
20:42 have ignored all the signs of something being unhealthy for me in order to use me for their own gain, whether it’s sexual or physical or running workshops or doing paperwork or giving them money or whatever the organization does and did. It’s all of those things.
20:58 Yeah.
20:58 And so
20:59 where’s the journey from there? It’s it’s it’s the slow struggle to uncover who what I feel. So I spent a lot of years just really confused. And I I didn’t know what was true for me anymore. Like I was actually genuinely terrified that I that I couldn’t and would never know what was right and wrong anymore because I couldn’t even conceive
21:22 that my sense of right and wrong could be deceived, that I could be deluded and overcome and overwhelmed and redirected in the ways that I was. It was just it was outside of my perception of likely, probable, or possible. And so I had to go in this deep scrape dive through myself and look at all the choices I’ve made year after year after year. And I have to tell you that’s a very
21:47 painful thing to do to say I did that but I didn’t choose to do that. I did that but I didn’t choose
21:52 Yeah.
21:52 to do that. Whereas all the those years I’d been saying I am choosing to do that. I am choosing to do that. And that’s a difficult thing to understand when it comes to being an inside
22:01 Absolutely. I think that
22:04 a cult.
22:04 I think that’s one of the scariest things for people is when you lose control over things and it’s such a unique experience that people can’t understand how you lose control. Like I’ve often work with people who have severe mental illness and their brains
22:23 are not functioning like say you or I, their brains are they have lost control of their thinking or thought in some instances. And when that happens it’s terrifying because it’s so out of your normal experience. But it’s I guess I’m relating it to yours in that we have this belief that we
22:45 are able to get ourselves out of danger and we’re able to have agency in our world and when that’s lost or totally taken over and replaced, it’s so frightening. Is that
22:58 to disagree. It’s not frightening that it’s I I have to
23:00 Okay, going for it, yay.
23:03 disagree. It’s not frightening when it’s taken away. Because actually
23:06 Yeah.
23:07 there’s this sense of sureness in a body, but that sureness when you know what you know and you like something or you don’t like something and you’re choosing it for you. There’s always a seed of doubt. what if I had done that other thing?
23:19 that person gave me weird vibes. I don’t like them. I moved away. but what if they were a good person?
23:22 Yeah.
23:23 I’m really being judgmental. You know, there’s always that seed of doubt, but what a what a cult gives you is sureness. It gives you
23:30 Yeah.
23:30 absolute rules. Wear this, do it this way, do it that way, do it this way. I mean, no matter how you try, you’re always doing it wrong. But somebody told you what to do. They told you what to think and where to go. And that’s exactly how it works.
23:42 So you have
23:43 Yeah.
23:43 this inner inner inner knowing. You have this inner voice. You have this inner feeling in your body. I feel good. I am more emotionally stable. I know I’m handling these situations better. And then you swap that out for the organization telling you you’re handling this worse. You’re handling that better. You need to channel more shakti, go work in a strip club. You need to, you know, you know, you need to be less of a vacillating woman.
24:09 go and handle our media or something, you know, whatever they want you to do, they come up with
24:12 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
24:13 a reason and you’re like, actually I was feeling really stable. All right, I’ll go work on that, because obviously I’m not, if you think so. So they give you this
24:20 Yeah.
24:20 this opinion, something to do about it. You never get reach the bar. You know, there there’s that great book, you know, try and try again, all all all is all all is coming about this kind of cultic mind control and this spiritualist practice of telling you, practice, practice, all is coming and
24:36 And yet you you never get there. But there’s that sureness. But what happens when you realize that you are no longer aligned with your own values? For you not even your own value systems, like your body is crumbling, your mind
24:49 yeah.
24:50 is breaking down, you’re having nightmares and panic attacks, and you don’t even have a name for them. You’re having and they’re telling you it’s because you’re not practicing hard enough, and eventually you are like I questioned
25:01 Need to do more yoga, pray more.
25:03 Maybe it’s this organization causing that distortion. So the the
25:07 Yeah.
25:08 actual sound of your recovery is agony. It’s the inner state of cognitive dissonance of the pain of your behavior versus your belief systems. It’s the agony of having belief systems that don’t actually match your life experience. Like maybe it’s, you know, homophobic value systems or
25:28 Yeah.
25:29 value systems, j you know, a a lot of a lot of organizations have you know, si i judge various sexual practices, you know? And and
25:37 Yeah.
25:38 you you’re you’re feeling like shame or guilt around around that and which doesn’t align with your own actually pre lived life experience, for example, or or you know, and there’s having these conflicting values, that that static that violent experience, that pain, that’s
25:56 That’s the sound of your own inner system turning back on. So actually the
26:01 Yeah.
26:02 experience of recovery is a painful, dysconfused feeling of not knowing and who am I and how do I find who I am and and that’s potentially one of the reasons and it would need more research why people end up in another cult, because they’re looking for clarity and sureness. I just this is so uncomfortable,
26:18 Exactly.
26:20 somebody sort it out.
26:21 Direction safely. Yeah. Yeah, Jaira
26:23 And so
26:25 and I just had that in our last episode had that exact same problem.
26:30 So what
26:30 these organizations take from us is is something way simpler than all our beliefs. It’s actually the innocence of our own experience. It’s that
26:39 Yes.
26:40 I exist, I feel I like or don’t like something and I don’t need to say why. It’s
26:46 Yeah.
26:46 the the place where you just know in yourself what it is or isn’t.
26:51 And yeah, you could have lots of ideas of whether that’s right or wrong going forward, but in that moment your body just knows. And then that’s that inner compass we’re coming back to with a clarification of understanding what a cult is.
27:03 Yeah, for sure. Absolutely.
27:05 What do you think the beliefs or reflexes for you were the hardest to unlearn? And I mean in some ways some people still unlearning
27:14 Well, we’ve brushed against this quite a lot and the unlearning is the unlearning that sureness is correct, that external
27:22 Yeah.
27:23 guidance is better than internal guidance. That’s the unlearning. And that’s
27:26 Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
27:27 that’s something that you have y at birth, you know what you like and you don’t like.
27:32 And then we’re socialized into certain behaviours and a healthy social structure allows people to choose at their own pace what’s working
27:40 Yeah.
27:40 for them, what’s not working for them, and and move through things. There’s a natural rate to that. Then th there’s kind of innocence and simplicity to play with it. And there’s and you’re
27:46 And playing with it. Yeah. Yeah.
27:50 always in this kind of window of tolerance. So now I have all these words after I deconstructed this whole cultic thing, after I kind of just scratched my way out. And
28:01 And that just came from the pain, you know, I was just so uncomfortable. There’s no one thing that helped me understand what had happened to me. It was just that I kept looking and I found a lot of things out there. I found a lot of words. I found therapist abuse. A lot of people write about that. And I found the word cult. And I found the you know, I found high control organization and narcissistic abuse and sociopath and
28:28 I read everything I could find. I watched all the movies I could find. I watched documentaries. I listened to podcasts.
28:33 Wow.
28:34 I was on YouTube. I was all over it. I used something till it worked. When it stopped working, I dropped it. I picked something else up and I just kept going until
28:42 Yeah.
28:43 it was clear it wasn’t just little me who had this bad experience that I let this thing into my life because I was silly and stu you know, I was a silly girl who got taken advantage of and probably I was needy and, you know, too sensitive.
28:56 that even got manipulated to
28:59 Hm.
28:59 this kind of genre of behaviour, this kind of behaviour has dates back to the beginning of human human existence. This is a whole
29:09 Capital thing.
29:10 s at a whole a whole spectrum of how groups interact and operate.
29:16 Yeah.
29:16 There is no you’re weak and you ended up in a cult because you wanted something or needed something specifically. This is everywhere. And so these
29:25 Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
29:28 so these organizations, once I understood these words, then I got other words like thought reform, which is brainwashing, and I got introjects, which is the values
29:38 Yeah.
29:39 of the organization inside you, and I got
29:42 I got a bunch of different distinctions that helped me understand what was this feeling inside this like I think this but I did this.
29:48 Yeah.
29:49 this cognitive dissonance and what is this feeling and then I have and I’m like, well that’d be panic attack and you know and then I got
29:55 Yeah, yeah, exactly. So you really
29:59 went on this huge mission to find out as much as possible and educate yourself and to help you understand what
30:07 That’s right, and I just didn’t stop. And eventually
30:08 And yeah. Yeah.
30:11 it led me to realise there isn’t enough conversation around this. I mean, it just shouldn’t
30:15 Yeah.
30:16 have been this hard for something that is so synonymous with culture and society cult culture. It’s just a culture, a toxic culture, but it’s just a culture that’s a part of our culture. And that’s why this thing
30:28 Absolutely.
30:29 is everywhere. And it’s not
30:31 you need to see the red flags of what is a cult. It’s you need to see when you stop engaging in a broad way in society, taking in broad views. It’s when you start closing down. It’s when you start screaming over the top of your own inner voice.
30:47 Yeah, exactly. And I think it’s a really good point that you raise in terms of it’s not just cults and there are so many people who get caught up in these scenarios every day and it there’s this kind of is it myopic view that only certain people get absorbed or join cults when it
31:10 There’s so many coercive organisations that work to change people’s interior world. and not enough recognition of that.
31:18 Like it’s the kind of
31:20 weird salacious experience that only you know, a few people have. Much Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
31:26 Only the specially broken or the specially weak or the specially needy person and it and it somebody
31:32 said to me years ago, a a very intelligent woman I know who I respect who’s a good friend, still a good friend, said to me, I, you know, a a cult couldn’t get me. I I went to this Scientology group when I was a teenager and I knew what they were doing. They didn’t they didn’t catch me, I I could walk away and I said, They didn’t want you.
31:53 my god, I love that response.
31:53 That’s why they didn’t catch you. You didn’t have anything of value for them at that time.
31:59 Right, you didn’t have enough cash, baby.
32:02 You didn’t have enough money,
32:03 power, influence, and you probably weren’t hot enough. What did you have that they wanted? You know, that’s the thing. If they want
32:07 Yeah
32:10 you, you will not believe the lengths that they will go to to get you. And it’s it it extends
32:15 Yeah. Yeah yeah.
32:17 way beyond anything anything any normal person, not normal person, but anybody who hasn’t been deep inside one of these organizations could even understand. It’s like way beyond
32:28 Yeah.
32:29 anything you’ve ever seen in a film.
32:30 You can’t put it in a film. That’s the thing. A documentary came about out about my cult and it most of what goes on in the cult isn’t even there because they can’t say it because nobody’s legally proven that they do that. So it’s only those
32:44 Yeah.
32:44 who have been deep inside, deeply immersed that really know what lengths these organizations will go to to get you. And it’s on every level.
32:52 Yeah, the understanding
32:54 the real nuance of how it works. ‘Cause it does Yeah.
32:56 yeah, and they are they are committed
32:59 and hardcore and, you know, unrelenting. So so let’s zoom
33:03 Absolutely. Yeah.
33:05 out. Yes, this is a genre of behavior that is as old as humanity, as old as group gatherings themselves. So yeah, it’s no
33:13 Yeah.
33:13 fault of any specific individual of something that they did. I said some years ago a phrase that I quite like and I’ve used it since, which is
33:21 when when somebody said they felt sad for their them them getting involved in this organization I said hey don’t blame yourself catching a cult’s like catching a cold it’s like it’s a broad
33:32 Yeah.
33:32 net they have a lot of different systems for lots of different kinds of people they’re telling each individual exactly what they want to hear that they’re gonna give them that thing and it’s really a bit hit and miss in terms of your life i your life situation
33:46 of how involved you’re gonna be with the cult. And it’s usually not a function of needy or weakness, it’s a function of highly skilled people with a lot of time and money on their hands. Because
33:58 Yeah.
33:58 people who have resources have the time and money to think about what they could do better, how they could give back, how they can be connected to others and do more, how they can kind of make things right in the world. And then they’re looking for people to come together and do that with.
34:14 And these are the kind of people, they’re not weak people, they’re people who run companies and homes and families so skilfully, they have extra time.
34:23 Yeah, somehow. Yeah, exactly. Yeah,
34:26 Yeah, that’s a hard thing to do, and we all know it.
34:29 yeah. Yeah.
34:30 I guess what were the first hints for you that you were coming back to yourself or is there any memories around that or starting to I don’t yeah.
34:42 People often people ask like what what what was the moment that I or the like what was the moment or the thing that you f felt like you’d found and it just it
34:53 Yeah.
34:54 just doesn’t this is a messy process. And and I and a human
34:57 Isn’t it?
34:58 a human yeah and a human life defies this like quick encapsulation. So I would say my primary my primary
35:06 success is some kind of grit and tenaciousness. I just didn’t stop.
35:11 Yeah.
35:12 I would not accept I would not accept and I still don’t accept and I wouldn’t s I’m not done. I I do not
35:19 Yeah.
35:19 accept that what level I’ve recovered to is the level I will get to. I would say
35:25 Yeah.
35:25 that just like Gabor Mate in his book The Myth of Normal, it just takes way more wit work than I ever expected and it’s kind of never done.
35:33 Because i I’m not perfecting
35:34 Excellent.
35:35 myself, I’m like harmonizing myself like an instrument. And because my environment is ever changing, my instrument is ever being tuned. And that journey
35:44 Yeah.
35:45 is a really beautiful one and it goes way beyond recovery and into like a depth of presence of being.
35:51 I love that answer. You have such an masterful way of speaking these concepts. I really appreciate that. Yeah.
35:59 Thanks. Yeah,
36:01 and I’ve and actually I really like that image and it was maybe by chance or maybe because we used the analogy before that that
36:08 Yeah.
36:09 the sound of like the sound of recognition that you’re inside an unhealthy dynamic is pain.
36:16 Yeah.
36:17 That’s not a signal that you’re broken, that’s not a signal that you’ll never recover. This kind of internal dissonance and the panic and the anxiety and the depression and the
36:27 don’t know who you can trust in the confusion, that’s actually a so sign that your instrument is turning back on, that your compass
36:33 Yeah.
36:34 is flowing this way and that, and you’re looking for where the alignment is. And at some point that that tune becomes a sound that you can hear and you can feel. And then your compass is inside. You’re you own it.
36:46 Yeah, absolutely, I totally agree. yeah, often with clients I’m working with, they’re like, I’m so confused and this is so painful and it’s so this and it’s so that and I I try to gently kind of say that’s actually good because that that you’re in a space where you’re open to learning and you’re in a space which means that you’re on your way or the connections are coming or they’re being connected. It’s
37:13 Like you’re not in stasis or you’re not stuck. it’s quite hard to kind of believe I guess when you’re in pain, but yeah, I think that’s a long
37:24 Yeah. And that and that’s the thing that these groups are selling. That they’re selling like a complete packet. I will free you from pain. I will free you from confusion. I
37:33 Yeah.
37:33 will take you to the endpoint. You will find awakening here. You will find Amrita here. You will find like your perfect partner love match.
37:42 Whatever here,
37:42 Yeah.
37:43 you will find the perfect union here, perfect sex here, the da da da da da. Every man will want you, every woman will want you. Whatever it is you’re seeking, it’s all here and it will be perfectly handed to you and I will give it to you if you just work hard enough. Well There are no perfect solutions in life. Life Life is simply just what it is. It is what it is appearing. There’s no there’s no other perfection than this
38:06 incredible mystery. There is no other place to be than this sometimes painful, sometimes glorious, delicious ecstasy, agony experience of confusion and sometimes loving your partner is devotion and sometimes it’s
38:17 And a little Yeah.
38:20 just work.
38:21 Yeah. I wonder, like I know that you’re really passionate about other things and I wonder how I mean in terms of flying and learning to climb and do things like that, I wonder how that’s played into help support you on this journey.
38:39 Yeah, so we’ve talked a lot about this in a compass and trusting yourself
38:43 Mm-hmm.
38:43 and the pain in inside the recovery, like the the sense of discovery of
38:48 Yeah.
38:48 just seeing that I have I have have I lived
38:53 To my fullest potential, have I done something worthwhile? Have I completed what I wanted? Have I even done what I wanted to do in life? Who am I? Like it’s like you turn
39:01 Yeah.
39:02 30, 40, or 50, and with these kind of questions you’re asking. And I think that a kind of tenacious, like, a tenacious kind of
39:09 cleaning of the lens or clearing back of the false beliefs and the false morals and the you know the self-judgment and those things. It’s it’s a process and it takes a long time. And there’s a there’s a real place for turning off the voices. It’s there’s a
39:26 If yeah.
39:27 real place for doing that. For just
39:30 silencing the the tracks because a lot of those are just such automatic stuff and
39:36 Online, yeah.
39:37 yeah and one could say you could meditate it away but actually it can just amplify it and and mindfulness when you come from a yogic or organization or a spiritualist group or a church group, any kind of prayer or silence or meditation is not really the way to to quieten the mind anymore because it’s quite triggering.
39:56 So a f something physical
39:57 Absolutely, yeah.
39:59 that isn’t yoga, that isn’t about being better for somebody else that isn’t something somebody else measures that’s just me. Me
40:08 Yeah.
40:08 and that raises edge of being in the now. And something
40:11 Yeah.
40:12 something that triggers fear, but a fear that will go away rather than the fear of God or the fear of
40:19 GB sending me off to wash dishes in a tiny little town because I didn’t do something menial in the right way, or the fear of two and a half thousand women calling me full of demons, or whatever the anxiety is, the fear that I’m on the wrong path or I’ll never get it back
40:38 Yeah.
40:38 again, or the f you know, all of these like unknowns, they never stop. This ambient terror in the background.
40:45 And that could be a corporate life as
40:45 It’s a lot of life.
40:46 well, which is also a kind of cult, like the corporate life that
40:50 Yeah.
40:50 says So yeah, the climbing and mountain biking and cycling and intense physical things and paragliding bring me to that edge of being right in that moment and it’s right there that I see what stands in my way of the recovery, let’s say. If
41:08 Right.
41:08 recovery and being present
41:10 and listening to myself for the same thing, if responding if responding naturally with innocence to the the the level of what’s required in that moment and no more and no less. So just put my hand on the next hold, lift my foot up, or just steer in the paraglider to to where there is to
41:30 Yeah.
41:31 go, just launch at the right time to really be so fully immersed in
41:36 all of nature that I’m responding to the right level, not overreacting, not withdrawn and underreacting, just action. And yeah, that’s definitely
41:45 Yeah. And train with your environment.
41:49 yeah, it definitely like aligns with that what is my compass? Like where am I in space? Like when is it the right moment
41:54 Yeah,
41:55 to move? And it’s not a second before or a second later. It’s exactly then, particularly with paragliding, exactly then.
42:01 Yeah.
42:03 Yeah, for sure. I like that the idea of the inner compass like yeah
42:08 Yeah.
42:09 or coming home to your own inner compass or developing.
42:12 Yeah. I think that you know when you sent out the questions and you you sent out the last like wrap up questions and the last one was what do I want people to go home with and to to know about people leaving cults? What do what’s the message I
42:27 Yeah.
42:28 wanna give? And I think we covered it but but I think but it’s worth it’s worth
42:34 it’s worth i putting it now because it relates to this. It’s that it’s not
42:38 Right.
42:39 it’s not a weakness that you were there, it’s not a fault on you. There’s nothing wrong or broken about you specifically more than anyone else. Mm
42:48 that these cults are a genre of behaviour that’s been around for so long that there’s no sense of personal blame that you ran into one or walked through one. It would be really weird if you didn’t. Everybody in the world has put aside their own values for something at some point or many points in their life for a partnership, like a parent or a child for a business or a deadline for even a stranger for
43:16 so many things that this is just that in an extreme version and to turn it into something that’s s specifically marks you like a red letter is just a kind of social self social socialized way of people distancing themselves from pain, which we can’t do. They we’re all gonna go through some profound suffering in life. So having said that the
43:40 beautiful lesson that comes from recognizing that you are in were in and a and are an ex member of a high control relationship or family or organization is that you get to really name that you’re in a compass is the most important thing and and
43:58 Yeah.
43:58 you get to come right back to that point in a way that other people may never get to name.
44:03 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I guess, yeah, we’re kind of moving up to the final questions. if you could go back and speak to yourself on the day you left, what would you say?
44:16 Well i I’m not gonna say it’s gonna get easier.
44:19 Yeah.
44:20 So it’s it’s certainly more complex.
44:21 I don’t think anyone said
44:23 that so far. Yeah.
44:25 It’s certainly
44:26 more complex before, it’s more simple.
44:29 Mm.
44:29 And and at that stage when you’re right at the point where you’ve just realized that it’s not working for you, there’s so much confusion, you don’t believe anybody about anything anyway, you don’t trust anybody. And
44:40 Yeah.
44:41 w one of the primary issues of being in a cultic group is that you learn to distrust the very people that are close to you.
44:51 Yeah.
44:51 And it can be very triggering for a long, long time in life, maybe till the end of life, to be in conversations with people that were in the same cultic or family cultic group as you, because they use certain specific words, this kind of loaded language, and it triggers
45:09 Yeah.
45:09 you in a certain way and it and it and you are reminded that you can’t trust those people, that they are that they serve this thing, this this guru, this head that’s actually out to
45:21 that’s a that’s a toxic force in your life, not a healthy force. So so yeah, I wouldn’t have believed me if I said it was gonna get better. And but I would like to say that the feelings of terror and anxiety and confusion are not a sign of
45:40 your insanity or that you’ve done something wrong, that God is punishing you or causing some psychosis because you didn’t try hard enough or put enough in to getting awakened. I would say that is the sound of a healthy system waking up.
45:59 Yeah. I love that so much. Yeah. That’s a fabulous message.
46:05 I’m one
46:06 Big.
46:06 you know I pre answered that question. Yeah, that was
46:08 I thought so.
46:11 t it it just my continued continued uncovering, like I just wouldn’t take what it was. I wouldn’t bury it. Other people it’s so painful. Yeah,
46:20 Absolute determination. Yeah.
46:23 it’s just so painful to accept that you you made choices that
46:27 maybe caused yourself to be sexually assaulted or you made choices that maybe caused yourself to be starved or imprisoned or lose all your income or hurt your family in some way and all of those things on some level true for many survivors, most survivors of the organization are Mesa. And it’s just so painful to accept that that
46:49 that that wasn’t you. And
46:52 Yeah.
46:52 that’s it’s that little thread, because in the beginning you believe it’s you. Like, how could I do that? That you don’t want to face it. But to
46:59 Yeah.
47:00 actually accept that that I was there, however I wasn’t acting on my own values, that that I could not consent to that given the situation.
47:10 Yeah.
47:11 Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think we often like we live in this culture of ultimate responsibility and quite frankly I think it’s bullshit because there’s so much that goes into making decisions. You know, our history, our ancestry, our experiences where we are, our our present environment, our mood, our there’s just so much
47:35 that goes into decision making. yeah.
47:39 Exactly.
47:39 And recently, interestingly on to this point, I had a conversation with let’s say a quite learned doctor and his perspective was around attachment theory. Str feels very strongly about attachment theory that if you are have this relatively healthy, balanced upbringing, then from there on in you are basically well set up for life and can handle like very
48:04 lots of very painful things happening to you and you’re really on track. And I said,
48:08 Yeah.
48:09 that’s interesting. I now firmly disagree. I believe it’s not that I don’t believe in attachment theory. It’s very useful theory, fantastic
48:15 Great. Agreed.
48:18 stuff. It’s that I have now seen, heard r so many stories of people who are doing very well in life, everything is going along really swimmingly, and then they catch a cult.
48:29 And then they’re in some hellish life cascade for five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five, thirty-five, forty years trying to recover from something that basically just derailed their life, and then they’re trying to recover it from it for the for the for tens of years going after that, and it turns them into a person that looks really dysregulated and
48:54 And misaligned in society and because they’ve had their value systems usurped and exchanged and swapped out for these other value systems and lived this life that did things that they didn’t even believe in and then came out losing
49:08 Yeah.
49:08 ten or fifteen years of their life and then can’t explain it to themselves. And this is why we need to have these conversations, because people don’t believe that happens. And it does. And then who do you talk to?
49:15 Absolutely. Yes. Yeah. And I love that
49:21 you I love that you brought that up and I love that you brought that up about around attachment therapy. sorry, attachment theory, ’cause it goes back to that kind of ultimate self responsibility stuff which I don’t believe in. I mean I yeah, I’m not gonna go into it anymore, but I guess
49:38 wow, I love I love this conversation we’ve had. I love how you you create really amazing kind of pictures or stories that make sense in terms of the internal processes of being absorbed into a cult and then being thrown out and the whole journey of processing that
50:02 made a lot of sense to me and yeah, so a huge thanks for coming on today. yeah.
50:09 Thanks. I really just hope this narrative is useful, that people can see themselves in this or you’re the partner of or you’re the child of
50:19 Yeah.
50:20 or you’re the parent of or you’re the friend of. And I hope that people out there say, Hey, I think you might want to hear this. Maybe it’ll show you something about yourself.
50:28 Absolutely.
50:29 And that’s you know, that’s why we exist, that’s why this podcast is here. And yeah, I think your voice has a lot of really amazing things to say. That’s why we’re having an episode two. and I can’t wait to get into that. so yeah, now we’re wrapping up another episode of Unspun. A huge thank you to Beck.
50:49 I know your story will inspire and give people direction and clarity about their experience. I know that these stories can stir a lot, so take care of yourself and make sure that you’re doing okay. unspinning these stories takes a lot of courage to speak, to listen, to feel.
51:12 if anything came up today, please take care of yourself. we honor everyone who shared today, especially Bex. thank you for walking alongside us until n next time. This is Unspun. I’ll just
51:25 Thanks, Sally.
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