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to conquer the day ahead. Hey

2:30

everybody, it's your host for the 4

2:32

the Love Podcast. Buckle up. Buckle

2:35

up today. Welcome to the

2:38

show. Cool. Today, let me

2:40

look, I officially kept my guests

2:42

16 minutes longer

2:45

than our scheduled time and I

2:47

wanted to keep her another four

2:50

hours. This conversation was so fascinating.

2:52

We are in these rows of a series

2:55

that has a lot of facets when

2:57

it comes to who we are as

2:59

women and how we

3:01

were raised. And so I

3:04

know in this particular community, a

3:07

bunch of us spent a

3:09

lot of formative years in

3:11

a culture, spiritual culture,

3:14

a religious culture that was

3:16

largely patriarchal. And despite

3:19

slow and steady progress in women's rights over

3:21

the last hundred years, it's

3:23

really only been maybe in the last 20 years

3:26

that some of the most seismic shifts

3:28

have occurred in

3:30

this particular space. And so

3:33

obviously we know that the patriarchy

3:35

is still firmly in place, but

3:38

there is this fascinating

3:41

and inspiring tidal wave

3:43

growing of women who

3:47

have questioned it, who have pushed back

3:49

against it, who have left it, litigated

3:51

against it, exposed it. Literally,

3:53

in the case of our guests today, escaped it,

3:56

which makes for a better world

3:58

for the next and

4:00

even a better one for the one after that. So in

4:03

celebrating the rise of the matriarchy, as we've

4:05

been calling it, we are looking

4:08

at how patriarchal rule,

4:10

particularly when combined with

4:13

religious, not just

4:15

fervor, but supposed

4:17

mandate from heaven, created

4:20

women who were groomed to believe

4:22

that their only worth

4:25

was how they could serve men and have babies. Our

4:28

guest this week has a very personal story to

4:30

tell about how she essentially escaped

4:32

that culture. And

4:34

her story represents a pretty

4:36

extreme point on the

4:39

patriarchal spectrum. But at the

4:41

end of the day, any time a woman

4:43

feels like she doesn't have agency over

4:45

her own life, her own body, her

4:47

own authority, her own desires,

4:50

no matter how subtle, there's

4:52

damage to her growth and

4:54

development. And a lot of

4:57

us in this world are

4:59

still digging out of

5:02

some of that early messaging, particularly

5:05

around purity culture. I

5:07

mean, that has created so

5:09

much sexual and

5:11

emotional trauma for

5:13

so many, not just women and girls, of

5:15

course, but also for boys. And

5:19

it's the work of a lifetime actually

5:21

to dismantle what a

5:23

lot of those messages built inside of

5:26

us during our formative years. So, whoa,

5:28

this conversation is gonna get you. We've

5:31

got Kate West today. She's a writer,

5:33

she's an editor, she's in Grand Rapids, Michigan.

5:36

Her work has been published in all kinds of

5:38

places. She is an advocate

5:40

and a survivor of the

5:43

Christian patriarchy movement, literally what it's

5:45

called. She serves on

5:48

the editorial board for Tears of Eden,

5:50

which is a nonprofit providing resources for

5:52

survivors of spiritual abuse. So, she

5:55

was absolutely raised in the

5:57

Christian patriarchy movement. Kate West was... Homeschooled,

6:00

K through 12. She

6:03

could only wear clothes her father named Monis.

6:05

In fact, she was five years old, and

6:08

she tells this story. The first time she

6:10

was told her swimsuit was two-wear villain. She

6:12

was in kindergarten. There would obviously be no

6:14

college in her future, no career. She was

6:16

to be a stay-at-home daughter, and she would

6:19

move out only when her father allowed her

6:21

to become a wife, which also meant picking

6:23

her husband. And of

6:25

course, only courting, no

6:28

dating, no physical exploration,

6:30

of course. Always with us, always with

6:32

a chaperone. She talks about it. She

6:34

was trained to serve men, and her life

6:37

would literally never be her own until she

6:40

did a stay, and she's going to tell us

6:42

all about it today. So if

6:45

you've ever grown up with any sense of

6:48

an innate male authority over your

6:50

life, over your agency, over your

6:52

autonomy, and certainly over your future,

6:55

particularly if it was baked into

6:57

a religious space, this conversation is

6:59

going to fascinate you today. It's

7:02

going to feel resonant, and

7:05

ultimately, it's going to feel

7:07

so hopeful. So I couldn't

7:09

get enough today, guys. Please

7:11

enjoy this fascinating conversation

7:14

with the very courageous Kate

7:16

West. Good

7:18

morning. Good morning. Thanks

7:21

for being here. I'm really looking forward

7:23

to this conversation. Thanks

7:25

so much for having me. And

7:30

I wanted to share that I heard you speak maybe

7:33

eight years ago. Wow. And

7:35

for me, it was a really impactful moment

7:37

because you were talking about speaking up

7:39

about injustice, and that

7:41

really helped trigger me to tell

7:43

my story. So thank you. It

7:45

feels like a full circle moment.

7:48

That's amazing. Eight year

7:50

ago, me was different

7:52

and just emerging. I was emerging

7:54

in a certain way eight years

7:57

ago. And so I

7:59

don't know what I'm... I said that day, but

8:02

I remember what I was going through in 2016 and it

8:04

was a lot. So

8:08

what a year to meet you. I

8:11

wonder if you wouldn't

8:13

mind right before we sort of really drill

8:15

in here. And by the way, thank

8:17

you for sending me your book. I got

8:21

that last week and we're going to talk

8:23

about that at length today. But before we

8:25

do, I wonder if you

8:27

could just weigh up here, like just

8:30

tell my listening community, this is who I

8:32

am and this is where I am. And

8:34

these are sort of the elements of my

8:36

life at this point. And then we'll really

8:38

get a little bit more into your story.

8:41

Sure. My name's Kate West. I

8:44

am a writer and an editor.

8:46

So my day job is editing books

8:49

and I've been writing on the side. That's

8:51

what I study in college. My

8:54

new book is called Wolfed, a memoir

8:56

of breaking away from Christian patriarchy. And

8:58

it's my expression of my

9:00

life thus far and what I've been

9:02

through. And it just feels like this

9:04

very creative endeavor to put

9:06

out in the world. But I live

9:09

in Grand Rapids, Michigan, not native. So the

9:11

Midwest is starting to grow on me a

9:13

little bit. I

9:15

also volunteer with a nonprofit called

9:17

Tears of Eden. We serve survivors

9:20

of spiritual abuse. And

9:22

that's a really meaningful time in my

9:24

life when I get to pass

9:27

on the help I received

9:29

and keep that chain going and

9:32

hopefully help with the healing

9:34

of so many. So you

9:36

just did a little light touchdown of the

9:39

big points of the story of

9:41

the plot line. Let's

9:43

go back to give everyone

9:45

some context on

9:48

why you now serve within an organization

9:53

that works with

9:56

victims of spiritual abuse and what

9:58

you know about that. So I'd

10:01

like to hear you talk about the

10:05

environment you grew up

10:07

in where I don't

10:09

know, you know what, I'm like a solar center, you can tell

10:12

us. This is a severe

10:14

end of a spectrum that

10:17

a lot of my

10:19

listening community understands. Maybe

10:22

not to that furthest degree, but

10:25

as you know, it is a continuum.

10:28

And so I believe that your

10:31

story is about to be really resonant

10:33

in one way or another for a lot of

10:36

my listeners. So can you talk

10:38

a little bit about that childhood environment? Sure.

10:41

And in the spectrum you're talking about, I feel

10:43

like I've lived all aspects of that because when

10:45

I was born, I was baptized

10:47

into a conservative Presbyterian church,

10:50

which is very common in the US.

10:53

And so I would consider that pretty

10:55

typical evangelical. The older I

10:57

got, the more my family became involved

11:00

in something called the Christian patriarchy movement.

11:02

And that's the term that we would have used, or

11:05

it's also known as biblical patriarchy. And

11:08

the idea is that men

11:10

are leaders of all realms of

11:12

society. So the church, the family,

11:14

the government, and

11:17

women are supposed to submit and follow.

11:19

They don't really have any choices within

11:21

this community. And

11:23

for me, growing up as a girl, I was told,

11:25

I was homeschooled, so

11:27

I was isolated. And then

11:30

the older I got, the more extreme our

11:32

beliefs became. And I was

11:34

told I would never go on dates. I would never

11:36

go to college. I would never

11:38

have a real job. And

11:41

my whole calling was to become a wife

11:44

and a mother and have as many children

11:46

as possible. So I didn't

11:48

have any choices in that. I didn't know

11:50

that I could have a voice or have

11:53

any say over my future. So

11:55

that's just the environment that I grew up in. And

11:58

I didn't get out until I was 25. because

12:00

those lies were so strongly bound

12:02

around me. Yeah. I'd

12:05

love to hear a little about your

12:07

mom, because

12:10

as mentioned, you started in what

12:12

might have been a little bit

12:14

more of a conventional evangelical space,

12:17

and then moved to one that was more extreme, in

12:19

which your mom would have

12:21

been expected at that point to also

12:23

give up her autonomy and

12:25

independence. And so I

12:27

don't know if it's too personal to talk about her

12:30

perception of this shift and what that

12:32

looked like in her life, because that

12:35

had been the primary female figure in

12:37

yours as well. Growing up, I

12:39

had heard stories of how my mom used to have a

12:41

job. She went to college at one point. Now

12:44

she had her own dreams, but I

12:46

was told that because we learned

12:49

this supposedly truth of what God wanted

12:51

from our family. That's why she gave

12:53

up all of that and became a

12:55

stay-at-home mom. And so

12:57

she homeschooled me from kindergarten all

13:00

the way through 12th grade. And

13:03

I didn't understand the context of

13:05

why she behaved that

13:08

way and how she was very

13:10

submissive. And now I

13:12

think I have a little more complex understanding

13:14

of that. I think she didn't have a

13:17

lot of choices. My father's very

13:20

authoritarian, very controlling.

13:23

And I think she put herself

13:25

in that position of thinking that it

13:27

would protect us from more

13:29

harm if she followed the

13:32

rules and brought us up in the way that

13:34

we could conform. So I think I don't

13:36

think of her as having malicious intent

13:38

in that. I do see

13:41

there's the enabling of what happened. But

13:44

again, she didn't have a lot of choices

13:47

in our family. It is

13:49

pretty well-documented that

13:52

that movement and others like it. That

13:55

is one version of a lot of versions that

13:58

we have inside religious patriots. patriarchy,

14:01

appeals particularly to

14:03

men with an authoritarian bent

14:05

who would like to have heart-blanche

14:09

control of the, certainly

14:11

the women in their lives, but really

14:13

their life period and culture and society.

14:17

Not that more gentle men cannot be sucked

14:19

into that fray. Of course, they can and

14:21

have been. But I'm curious about

14:23

your dad, if you're willing

14:25

to talk about both how

14:29

he adapted to

14:31

this religious mandate,

14:33

if you will. And

14:35

also I'd like to hear you talk about what

14:38

were some of the key front

14:40

doors that opened

14:43

to pull you out of

14:45

just a Presbyterian environment into

14:48

one that was full religious

14:50

patriarchy? Was it a teacher? Was

14:52

it a curriculum? How did this

14:54

happen? Two big questions. Take whichever one

14:56

you want first. I'll start with

14:58

my dad. He has a very charismatic

15:00

personality. He can

15:03

step into a room and be the life of the

15:05

party. And I think a lot of people who are

15:08

like him look that

15:10

way from the outside. But on the inside, in

15:12

our family, he was very controlling. There's

15:15

always lots of rules to follow. And

15:17

if you disobeyed, there was harsh punishment.

15:20

He didn't like anyone going against what he said.

15:23

And so I think he was

15:25

drawn to this belief system because

15:27

it gave him validation for wanting

15:30

to control us. You know,

15:32

it said, this is God's blessing if

15:35

you control us. So I

15:37

think that he was drawn to it. And I

15:39

know men come to this differently, but that's how

15:41

I see my father coming to it. And

15:45

I can see, you know, if I go back in

15:47

my childhood, I can see the little steps as we

15:50

became more and more radicalized. And

15:52

I remember there's just one family I talk about

15:54

in the book where the dad

15:56

and my dad were really good friends and they

15:58

would always have these conversations. And from

16:01

what I remember, he was the one who introduced

16:04

our family to this magazine called

16:06

Patriot Magazine. It's literally the name

16:08

of it. And the whole idea

16:11

was to indoctrinate

16:13

and spread these teachings. It

16:16

was very grassroots type of newsletter. So

16:19

that's one of the first things I

16:21

remember happening that brought us more along

16:23

that spectrum to the extreme side. And

16:26

with homeschooling, I think we were

16:28

in an environment where I was very isolated.

16:31

And so my

16:33

dad brought in all these teachings

16:35

through audio cassettes and sermons, and they

16:37

were from patriarchal leaders. And so I

16:41

didn't have a lot of outside information. But

16:44

we heard teaching from people like Doug

16:46

Wilson, who was still a

16:48

leader in the patriarchy movement, very powerful.

16:50

So this is not something that's

16:52

gone away, or that just happened in my childhood,

16:55

it's just been going on for a few decades

16:57

now. So those kinds

16:59

of leaders were

17:01

teaching these things. And it was

17:03

the environment I swam in, like it was just

17:06

every time we were in the car, we listened to it

17:08

every sermon, we went to a church, we found a patriarchal

17:11

church, where the pastor was very

17:13

much like this. So it was just everything

17:16

that I was living in. Are seeing

17:18

it out a little bit more.

17:20

There's so many elements growing up

17:22

like this. But can you talk

17:24

about what you were taught, what

17:26

you were allowed, the

17:28

limitations around your

17:31

body? You had virtually

17:33

no autonomy around

17:36

your body, obviously, parody

17:38

culture factored heavily into

17:41

your trauma here. And this is a through

17:43

line for a lot of people in this

17:45

community, to varying degrees, but we

17:48

all know, we all know exactly what

17:50

that was. And so I'd like

17:52

to hear you talk about what you were

17:54

told in the

17:56

category of your health, your

17:59

septum. sexual possibility in

18:01

your future. There's

18:04

a lot I could say about that. I

18:06

never received any sex education, so

18:09

it was very much like abstinence and

18:11

zero information about what even sex was.

18:15

The idea was I would learn on my wedding night

18:17

what sex was, which is a terrible,

18:19

terrible strategy. You know,

18:21

with purity culture, you're expected to not have any kind

18:24

of physical encounter with another

18:26

person, and so you have no

18:28

experience, and I

18:31

was just hoping that whoever I got married

18:33

to would be nice, you know, and I

18:36

was hoping that we could fall in love, because

18:38

even that wasn't a given. The idea

18:40

was that I would marry somebody who agreed

18:42

with my dad, and that

18:44

was the main goal, was

18:47

marrying a patriarchal man. But

18:49

some of my earliest memories, like, I

18:52

can't remember a time when I felt at

18:54

home in my body, and

18:57

I think because these teachings happened so early

18:59

on, one of the first scenes I write

19:01

about in my book is one

19:04

of my earliest memories, which is I

19:06

was wearing a two-piece bathing suit, I was

19:08

five years old, and

19:11

I don't remember where it came from, I think it was

19:13

like a hand-me-down or something like that. I

19:15

was just a little kid, I wanted to go

19:17

swimming, and then

19:19

my dad got upset. He

19:21

told my mother to tell me to

19:23

go change, so he directed

19:25

her to tell me to do that, which is

19:28

an interesting dynamic. But

19:30

all I remember feeling was I did something

19:32

bad, something about that

19:34

my body is wrong to

19:36

have it seen. I

19:39

have no idea, like, I'm a five, I'm not,

19:41

you know, no idea about sexuality that in my

19:43

head. You're in kindergarten. Yeah,

19:46

so I just remember all this shame and

19:48

this feeling of something's wrong with me. And

19:51

I carried that throughout my childhood, and

19:54

I was enforced by these ideas that my

19:56

body's not my own, my heart

19:59

is deceitful. When I get married,

20:01

I need to be available 24-7 for my husband. So

20:05

things like marital rape happen a

20:07

lot in these communities because women

20:09

are trained from childhood not

20:12

to have any agency or

20:14

to understand what sexual assault even is.

20:17

So this is devastating to recognize

20:21

that in my mid-20s, like, oh, this is what

20:23

happened to me. And even

20:25

now, I'm struggling with coming

20:27

back to my body. And I

20:29

feel like the past few years have been

20:32

more embodied and feeling

20:34

more at home with myself. But it

20:36

has definitely been a journey because I don't really have a

20:38

baseline to go back to. You

20:41

have no precedence here. There's no

20:44

cork board to stick any of this to. You're

20:47

making it up from scratch. You

20:49

have said that this sort

20:52

of totalitarian control of your life

20:54

and your body at some

20:57

point begin to manifest as

21:00

anxiety and depression. I'd like

21:02

to hear you talk about

21:04

your earliest sense of

21:07

those levels of this forfeiture of whatever

21:11

independence any normal person would ever want

21:13

to have. How did that begin

21:15

to feel? How did you make sense of

21:18

your feelings? And how early did

21:20

you begin to sort of start making

21:22

the connection? This is why I

21:24

feel this way. Yeah. I

21:27

think for me, around puberty,

21:29

around when I was 11, a

21:32

lot of really big things

21:34

happened in my life. My

21:37

sister almost eloped with

21:40

someone that my father didn't approve of. Whoa.

21:43

How old was she, by the way, at the time? I

21:45

think she must have been 21. Okay. I'm

21:48

going to put a pin in that. I want to

21:51

talk about the siblings in a second. Keep going. And

21:53

yet my older brother left at

21:55

the age of 17 to join the army

21:58

around the same time. then

22:01

9-11 happened and

22:03

also we had this big forest fire

22:06

near my house in Colorado and we

22:08

were evacuated for two weeks. And

22:10

so all of these things were

22:12

happening around the same time where I was, you

22:15

know, coming into

22:17

adolescence where you normally supposed

22:19

to develop a sense of independence, but I was

22:21

coming into it with all this fear, you know,

22:23

of I was told like

22:25

9-11 and forest fires were because we

22:28

are sinful people and my siblings were

22:30

leaving or trying to leave and they

22:32

were becoming excluded from

22:34

the family and cut off from the

22:36

family. And so all of this fear

22:39

I held inside. And

22:41

so I think that's what caused

22:43

my anxiety as a teenager. But

22:46

at the time, I thought it

22:48

was because I wasn't a good Christian. I

22:50

thought it was because I had doubts or

22:52

I had questions and

22:55

I couldn't make sense of some of the things I

22:57

was being told. So I assumed

22:59

it was me. I had a lot of

23:01

self-loathing because I was taught to be that

23:04

way. And I just thought it was my

23:06

fault that I was anxious and depressed.

23:09

And it wasn't until a decade

23:12

later that I realized there's

23:14

something wrong that's happening here. And it

23:17

happened after my own courtship. I had a courtship

23:19

that failed this big heartbreak

23:22

and I felt a

23:24

lot at the time. And I was just

23:26

like, it can't be wrong to feel these

23:28

things. I was being told I

23:30

had to repent of my emotions. And I

23:32

was like, wow, that can't

23:35

be true. So that, you know,

23:37

that's a lot like a decade

23:39

worth of trauma and

23:41

trying to figure things out. But

23:44

I didn't realize that it wasn't my fault because

23:47

I'd been told I was evil.

23:49

And so I didn't get it that I

23:51

was having mental health problems until much later.

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with Biotour. Really

26:02

quickly, before we move forward in your story,

26:04

I'd like to hear about your siblings. And

26:06

I was curious about how many

26:09

of you there are, where you fall in the lineup and

26:12

did anybody else defect

26:15

before you as probably an

26:17

outrageous means of independence that

26:19

it sounds like at least there was an attempt.

26:21

I don't know how far that went. And you

26:23

just, I know that's their stories and they have

26:25

their own versions of everything here, but I'd

26:28

like to hear what you were looking at inside

26:30

the family in terms of SIBs. Yeah.

26:32

So I have two older siblings, an

26:34

older sister, an older brother, and then

26:37

one younger brother. And my sister's nine

26:39

years older than me. So I

26:41

felt like I was learning a lot

26:43

from how my father treated her, that I

26:47

became like really good at following the rules

26:49

because I could see the moments

26:51

where she was resisting this oppression and

26:53

she would get in trouble. So when

26:57

she tried to

26:59

elope, she was working for

27:01

a bakery and she met

27:03

somebody there. And I

27:06

think it must have felt like it was the only

27:08

way to get out or the only way to find

27:12

happiness and have a choice. But

27:15

when my parents found out the day

27:17

of, they made me feel

27:19

at least like she was dead

27:21

to us. We were never going to talk to

27:23

her again. Wow.

27:25

And there was a few hours where I remember

27:28

because I wrote about this in my journal because I

27:30

was like grieving that loss of my sister that she's

27:32

never going to come home. And

27:35

I think something must have happened in those few

27:37

hours where she changed her mind and maybe it

27:39

was because she didn't want to lose her family.

27:42

You know, that's that's huge. And

27:44

so she came home. My dad made her quit

27:46

her job and she

27:48

became even more isolated and eventually got

27:51

married through a courtship.

27:53

And she has her own story about that. And

27:56

years later, she she's five kids.

27:59

She. got divorced. She's a single

28:01

mom and she's doing amazing, but

28:04

she has her own journey of figuring her way

28:06

out. So I don't want to share too much,

28:08

but I'm just really proud of

28:11

her and what she's been able to

28:13

do. And my older

28:15

brother, he never felt like he was part

28:17

of the Christian faith. So when he was

28:19

17, he was like, I'm out. So

28:22

that's why he joined the army and

28:24

we lost contact for a few years and

28:28

eventually reconciled. And yeah,

28:32

he didn't see a lot of the patriarchal stuff because

28:34

he left so early. He didn't

28:36

see how I grew up with this.

28:38

So, and as a man, he wouldn't

28:41

have been impacted the same way,

28:43

but seeing him like leave and

28:46

I was being told he's a prodigal son, he lost. And

28:48

so both

28:52

of these experiences taught me never

28:54

break the rules, never leave. You're

28:57

going to get cut off from your whole

28:59

world. So that's what

29:01

I was going through. And

29:03

my younger brother, he's three years

29:05

younger than me and he has, each

29:07

of my siblings has an incredible story of how

29:10

we got out because we've all gotten out of

29:12

this system. So that's good news.

29:14

That is good news. And I talk about this a

29:16

little bit in my book, but my younger brother's gay.

29:18

And when he came out to

29:20

me, I had no resources to know how

29:23

to handle it because you're taught horrible

29:25

things about people who were in

29:27

the LGBT community. So it really

29:29

opened my eyes because I love

29:32

my brother because it's your brother, you know, and

29:34

yeah, I want him to be happy. And he

29:37

shared with me that what

29:39

you're being taught made him feel like he could never be

29:41

in a loving relationship

29:44

with another person. And that,

29:46

that broke my heart. That's what I was experiencing

29:49

because our feelings didn't

29:51

matter. So he

29:53

left right around the same time I did. And

29:56

I think a few months after. And so

29:58

I felt like when I last I

30:01

was shattering the family because

30:03

we hadn't really talked openly about all

30:05

of this. It felt like

30:07

I was devastating our entire

30:09

community. But over

30:11

time, my siblings and I have all

30:14

talked through it and we've

30:17

been able to hang out again and heal

30:19

those relationships, which were broken. So

30:22

I'm really grateful for that. Let's

30:24

talk about that leaving process.

30:27

Obviously, this was building as

30:30

a pressure cooker inside your body, inside

30:32

your mind, inside your psyche. And

30:36

leaving exerting control over your own

30:38

story is the worst

30:41

thing you could do inside an environment like

30:43

that. That is you were not allowed the

30:45

end. I mean, this would have

30:47

to have been a complete breach of

30:50

every authority figure right who God

30:52

had placed over your life. That's

30:54

that system. And 21 is

30:56

not old. I mean, obviously, you're a

30:58

young adult, but we now know that 21 is

31:01

young. And so, or I

31:03

guess you were 25. Yeah, but 21 is

31:05

you are beginning to sort of like,

31:07

yeah, connect your pieces. So how

31:10

did you do it? And

31:14

how scared were you? And

31:16

who helped you if anybody

31:18

did? And what did

31:20

that early leaving process look

31:23

like and feel like for you? Because

31:25

you're supposed to be a stay at home daughter,

31:27

right until? Well, you almost were

31:29

right. You had a failed courtship. And for

31:31

people who don't know what courtship is, your

31:34

dad pretty much chooses a person for you. And

31:36

you did you always have to

31:39

have a chaperone? Yes, always

31:41

chaperones. Did you get to hold hands or

31:43

no? No, no, no, no, no, no touching,

31:45

no, nothing. No feeling. No, no, no, no

31:47

feelings. It's really just, this is your person

31:50

I've chosen. This third person will be here

31:52

with you anytime you spend together and then

31:54

you'll get married and work it out. Yeah.

31:56

Yeah. Okay. Also, also in my

31:58

family, we have a family. we did a weekly

32:01

meeting with my dad and he would

32:03

ask us really embarrassing questions like have

32:05

you ever looked at pornography and stuff. So

32:07

we had to like answer those to my

32:10

dad in this courtship process. So

32:12

God, how old were you by the way,

32:14

when you were in this relationship first courtship

32:16

I started I was 20 and I was 21

32:18

when my dad ended it. Oh,

32:23

your dad ended it. Oh God. Okay.

32:25

Can we just talk about that for one

32:27

second before we get forward that feels like too

32:29

big of a piece to leave on the table. Yeah,

32:32

I mean, you're trained to become a wife,

32:34

right? And so I had

32:37

never really felt like

32:39

super excited about that. But it was just like, this

32:41

is what I'm going to do. Secretly, I

32:44

wanted to fall in love and have a romantic

32:46

relationship. So when this man approached my dad and

32:48

asked to have a courtship with me, I was

32:51

really excited. He was really

32:53

nice. He was funny. He

32:55

has a good storytelling. And

32:57

we had a long courtship because my

32:59

father kept finding issues with him

33:02

that he needed him to correct or find

33:04

a different job or he

33:06

became sort of controlling of him too. And

33:09

I mean, I think

33:11

it's very natural to fall in love with someone that

33:13

you think you're going to get married to, or

33:16

just like imagining what

33:19

it would be like. And I think I fell in love

33:21

with an idea of this person because I didn't really know

33:23

him very well. So when my father

33:26

ended it, because he didn't

33:28

think that he was following his rules

33:30

to the T I was

33:32

brokenhearted. And then I just,

33:36

I couldn't handle it. And at the

33:38

same time, my father is telling me to

33:40

repent because I have

33:43

emotions for him. Which

33:46

is essentially saying, I

33:48

deserve to go to hell because I love

33:50

somebody. And that's

33:52

that pivotal moment when I was thinking that

33:56

that's not true. Like I just

33:58

knew deep inside, that's not true. And

34:00

that's a scary thing to realize

34:02

like your father is lying to

34:04

you about something. It's terrifying because

34:07

my whole life was staked on

34:09

this. I didn't

34:11

have anything else. So

34:13

yeah, that was a really difficult feeling

34:16

and I remember thinking to myself, I'm never going

34:18

to let this happen to me again. And

34:21

obviously I didn't leave for four more years, but

34:23

I was really committed to like finding

34:26

my way out at that point. You

34:28

were. So let's fast forward. Obviously

34:31

you spent 21 to 25, at

34:34

least internally processing. Did

34:36

you have any allies in your life who

34:39

were safe people to talk to

34:41

or to process

34:43

information with? There

34:45

were a couple instances

34:48

where I felt like I could talk a

34:50

little bit. So my older

34:52

brother, we had reconnected and I

34:54

thought maybe I can move in with him, you know,

34:57

because he would understand. So he

34:59

offered for me to stay with him. That was one

35:02

idea. And he had

35:04

been married at that point and his wife,

35:06

I remember her asking me like, are you

35:08

okay? Like, is this what you want?

35:11

And just the idea of somebody asking me what I

35:13

wanted, nobody had ever asked me that. And I was

35:15

like, Oh, I think I said probably whatever script I

35:17

had been given. Like, of course I want this. Like,

35:19

this is what I'm supposed to do. But

35:22

this question made me

35:25

think about it and gave

35:27

me the opportunity to realize, Oh,

35:29

I have agency in my life. I

35:31

do have choices. So

35:33

those kinds of small things. And then

35:35

I had a friend who lived in

35:38

Michigan actually. And I

35:41

saw on Facebook that she got married,

35:43

but her parents were not the wedding. So

35:46

I contacted her and I was like, what's

35:48

going on? And she told me how her

35:51

parents had disapproved of her

35:53

relationship and how she got married anyways

35:56

and was making choices for herself. So that was

35:58

like the one person I knew. knew who had

36:01

been through something similar and

36:04

had gotten out. So that was like my

36:06

one light at the end of the

36:08

tunnel, like it is possible. So

36:11

you're ruminating on it. You're collecting

36:14

very few but a couple of

36:16

stories of possibility. What

36:18

happens at 25? I

36:21

had this idea of like this vague plan of moving

36:24

out somehow and like I would probably be broke. It's

36:27

because people who are stay at

36:30

home daughters, we aren't

36:32

usually have any finances or many cases

36:36

our parents control our bank accounts. So

36:39

in my case, I had this loophole where

36:41

I was allowed to teach piano lessons to

36:44

other homeschooled kids and I

36:46

was allowed to keep the money. So

36:49

that was my probably the

36:51

biggest resource I

36:53

had to leave because

36:55

we lived in Hawaii. It wasn't like I could

36:58

just drive away, you

37:01

know, and it's very expensive to live there. And

37:03

so I was saving some money because I was like, I need to get

37:05

out and I need to save some of this money. And

37:08

at the same time, I met

37:10

somebody at church and

37:14

we became best friends. And

37:17

then we started to fall in love. And

37:19

then we thought maybe we

37:21

should have a courtship and see how that

37:23

goes. And my father said yes for

37:26

one week. And then he

37:28

changed his mind. He found fault

37:31

with him. Yeah. He

37:33

was like, Oh, he doesn't have $40,000 in the bank. Something

37:37

really weird. Who has that? Right,

37:40

right. Somebody has that dad. Yeah,

37:43

especially when you're a young adult. So

37:46

we decided, well, it wasn't

37:48

only decision, but we just had a secret relationship.

37:51

And so I felt like I'm going to hang around

37:53

a little bit longer because

37:55

I felt this connection with somebody who was

37:59

treated. me like I mattered. And

38:02

like my opinions mattered. He asked me what I

38:04

like to read. He was interested

38:06

in my thoughts. Like that had never

38:08

happened before. And so I'm

38:12

going through all this mentally, you know, like this,

38:14

this figuring out that I

38:16

don't belong here. At the same

38:18

time I'm falling in love. At the

38:20

same time I'm trying to save money. And then

38:22

it all just collides. And

38:25

we get engaged against

38:27

my father's blessing. He said

38:29

he wouldn't give us his blessing. And

38:31

that's when we moved to Michigan. And

38:34

I used that piano money. The

38:37

only thing I brought with me were boxes of

38:39

books. And a suitcase of clothes.

38:41

And I started

38:43

over here in Michigan and we

38:45

got married and we're still together. So

38:47

it's a strange story. Really happy with

38:50

how it all turned out. Because it was

38:52

scary for a while. Oh my God,

38:54

I have a million questions. I

38:57

just have a million questions because you

38:59

grew up literally

39:03

isolated. You were religiously and spiritually

39:05

isolated. You were geographically isolated. Yeah.

39:07

I mean, you're in Hawaii. There's

39:09

just, you're locked in in every

39:12

which way. So your exposure,

39:14

I'm sure

39:16

to the rest of the world was limited

39:19

and controlled. And so I am

39:21

trying to think about you 25 forced

39:26

to be as naive as you were. Literally

39:28

you didn't have a choice to have a

39:31

wider perspective on the world,

39:33

on people, on life, on

39:36

sexuality, on anything.

39:38

Really. Like I'm trying to think about you

39:40

landing in Michigan with your box of books

39:43

and your piano money. Like

39:45

you were dropped on Mars with a

39:48

boyfriend. Everything is outside

39:50

of what your experience had been.

39:52

What? I'm guessing. Certainly

39:55

not going to lead the witness because you're going to tell

39:58

your own truth here, but I'm guessing it was bumpy. be.

40:01

Can you talk about it? Yeah, I

40:03

had to leave my parents and that

40:05

was the hardest part was

40:08

getting on that plane and

40:10

saying goodbye. Were they furious? My mother

40:12

was supportive in the way that she

40:14

could be, which I'm grateful

40:16

for the way that she could be very

40:19

quiet, you know, but my

40:21

father was very angry. But at

40:23

the point when I was moving away, he

40:25

had stopped talking to me mostly and I

40:27

was like shut down up

40:30

until that point. There was a lot of

40:32

like verbal abuse and things happening

40:35

that made the home really unsafe for

40:37

me. So leaving

40:39

felt this complicated

40:42

situation of I'm leaving

40:45

something that's not safe for me at the same

40:48

time. I'm leaving my parents who

40:50

are supposed to love me and

40:52

it felt like this huge break.

40:54

Be like, I don't know. I

40:57

don't know how to describe it. It was just really

40:59

devastating. And then

41:01

and then I take this long plane

41:04

trip to Michigan and

41:06

my fiance is on the other side and

41:08

we have this beautiful summer of planning

41:12

of quick wedding and just

41:15

going on dates which I had never done before.

41:18

And it was this beautiful experience

41:21

of feeling alive and free and

41:25

just like letting go of all this

41:27

stress. But then reality

41:29

kicked in, you know, because you got to make

41:31

money. I

41:33

have mental health issues. I

41:35

didn't realize I had PTSD,

41:38

which I didn't have language for at the time.

41:40

So I was having panic attacks,

41:42

nightmares, and it was just really difficult because

41:45

I was very confused. Like I'm out of

41:47

this situation and all of a sudden my

41:49

body's experiencing all the

41:51

trauma after the fact.

41:53

I was like in survival mode and now

41:55

I'm out and it's

41:58

all manifesting. scary

42:00

and then I had to find a job and

42:02

I went on so many job interviews. I had

42:04

to teach myself how to write a resume. I

42:06

was at the library all the time and

42:08

finally got a job at a little

42:10

bakery and started going

42:13

to community college and

42:15

that just opened up my whole life.

42:18

You know, I took an intro

42:20

to psychology class where my teacher helped

42:22

me understand why I was having nightmares

42:24

so I couldn't afford therapy but I

42:26

could do that, you know. Community college

42:29

was therapy, yep. Yeah,

42:31

right, because I was trying to survive

42:33

and I was able to

42:35

get some scholarships and some grants to help

42:37

me get to college and yeah, it was

42:39

very bumpy but also so liberating

42:41

to explore

42:44

who I am and what I

42:46

want to do and how do

42:49

I behave around other people

42:51

and I can create my own relationships

42:53

and no one's telling me what to

42:55

do anymore. This is wild. How

42:58

did your fresh new young husband handle all

43:00

this? He's always

43:02

been my steady companion

43:04

because he experienced some of that verbal

43:07

abuse from my dad and he knew what

43:09

it was like and so

43:11

when we left he was just always

43:13

there like very grounding person and when

43:16

I would have anxiety

43:18

attacks he didn't understand what's going on either

43:21

but he would just sit with me

43:23

until I could get through it and come

43:25

back to like regulate my nervous system so

43:28

he just was there with me through

43:30

it and that meant more than having someone try to

43:32

fix it or tell me what to

43:34

do so we've been through a lot together

43:36

and now we have a lot

43:39

more language for what happened and we've both

43:41

been to therapy we've both worked through our

43:43

issues and really grateful for

43:45

all of that. This episode

43:47

of For the Love with June Hatmaker is

43:49

brought to you by BetterHelp. We

43:52

all carry around different stressors they

43:54

can be big, difficult, even

43:57

scary life things and also small

43:59

inconveniences that add up day after day.

44:02

The thing is when we keep them all bottled up

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47:25

podcast. Remember

47:29

how explosive I mean he looks every week

47:31

but especially against us. Yep. with

47:34

your own ideas and

47:36

your own desires. And

47:39

I wonder if we can fast forward a little bit. I really

47:41

could keep you on this interview for 100 hours. I've

47:44

got a thousand micro

47:46

questions all along the way, but I really

47:48

want to hear you talk about

47:50

Tears of Eden. And

47:53

at what point you

47:56

began to realize, oh, I have

47:59

something to say here. This is not just me. There

48:02

are like silent suffering people everywhere

48:04

who've been through this. How did

48:06

this come up in your life and

48:08

at what point did you feel ready to

48:10

be on the other side

48:12

of the equation? That was a

48:14

long process because I wanted to leave it

48:16

all behind and start new and just never

48:18

talk about it ever again. That's

48:21

not how life works because we are who we

48:23

are. And when

48:25

I was studying in college, I studied writing

48:28

and I wanted to do fiction writing, but

48:30

we had to choose a second genre. So

48:32

I picked creative nonfiction, which makes

48:35

you write about yourself. And so I started

48:37

writing a little bit and pieces of my

48:39

experience and then witnessed

48:41

my classmates and my

48:44

professors like not understand what

48:46

was happening. Like this is how you grew

48:49

up. This is really crazy.

48:51

For me, it was normal. And I

48:54

realized I had a story to tell. And

48:56

then going to writing conferences

48:59

and learning from all the writers like

49:01

you who was talking about speaking up

49:03

for injustice, I decided

49:05

to tell part of my story online. And

49:08

I started doing that around 2018, 2019, and

49:13

realized there's a lot more people who've been through this.

49:16

And there's just been silenced or

49:18

afraid. People who if

49:21

they say something, their family's gonna cut them off.

49:23

That's what happened to me in 2019. And

49:27

I had an interview and I started talking online about

49:29

my experience. My dad decided not to talk

49:31

to me anymore. So I

49:33

seen that happen. So I understand that fear. But

49:36

once I lost that

49:38

relationship, I felt liberated to

49:40

tell my story because somebody

49:43

has to, somebody has to say something.

49:45

This keeps happening. And

49:47

the more I tell it, the more

49:49

people I've met who if they haven't

49:52

experienced this extreme, they're

49:54

somewhere on that spectrum of patriarchal

49:56

oppression. And so I think it does

49:58

resonate with a lot of women. especially

50:00

those coming out of the evangelical church, which

50:02

is how I met Tears of Eden. So,

50:05

the founder's name is Katherine Spearing,

50:07

and she grew up very similar

50:09

to how I grew up, and

50:11

she started this organization for survivors

50:14

of spiritual abuse, because at the time,

50:17

almost no one was using that phrase,

50:19

spiritual abuse, or

50:21

taking it seriously. And so

50:23

she started this foundation. I

50:25

heard about it through their podcast, and

50:29

I went through their first support group,

50:32

and I got to learn from

50:35

a professional trauma

50:37

therapist, and she

50:40

helped walk us through how

50:43

spiritual abuse was impacting us, and we got

50:45

to talk in a safe community. It was

50:47

all online, and it

50:50

was this really transformative experience of being

50:52

in a community again after

50:54

being cut off in the community and

50:57

realizing we could support each other.

50:59

Was it primarily women? Yes, primarily

51:02

women, and women led. You

51:04

know, and I think that's important to know is

51:06

a lot of the people leading this

51:09

movement of healing after spiritual abuse are

51:11

women. So, shortly after that, I started

51:13

volunteering with them, and now I'm on

51:16

their editorial board where I get to help other

51:19

survivors tell their stories on our

51:21

website, and I personally

51:23

think telling your story is one of the

51:25

most important and powerful things you can do

51:27

to heal. That's right. It's

51:30

not neutral. That is a healing step, just

51:33

putting your voice to use. What

51:35

are some of the other resources

51:37

that you put around women, and probably

51:40

some men too, men come

51:42

up through spiritual abuse as well? Obviously, I

51:44

think about your brother, your little brother, spiritual

51:46

abused. And so, what

51:49

does that look like? How do you begin

51:51

to help people have restored

51:53

autonomy? Because I am

51:55

not a trauma expert. I'm

51:57

a writer, a storyteller. That's

52:00

where I see my best work being

52:02

is helping people tell their stories and

52:05

sharing my story so that they don't feel

52:07

alone. And that supports like

52:09

the bigger mission of Tears of Eden

52:11

where we do have trauma professionals who

52:14

can walk people through this process

52:17

of healing. And so through

52:19

Tears of Eden, we've had a retreat, we've had

52:22

our first retreat last year. It was a

52:24

beautiful experience of being embodied together. We

52:26

did trauma-informed yoga and we had

52:30

experts come and speak to us. And

52:32

it was just this wonderful experience of,

52:34

it was like a retreat, but it was

52:36

more of, you know, it wasn't quite a

52:38

conference. It was more of a healing experience where you could

52:41

just do whatever you wanted to do. You don't have to

52:43

even show up to the talks. For

52:45

me, I think the most important thing is showing

52:48

people their options. And

52:51

that's why I'm drawn to Tears of Eden

52:53

because there is zero agenda for

52:55

where you should end up. I think I see a

52:57

lot of problem with spiritual

52:59

abuse survivors and

53:02

organizations trying to help them, but they're pushing

53:04

them toward a certain belief

53:06

system or a certain

53:09

end result. And I don't think that

53:11

is healthy. I

53:13

think people should be given the agency

53:15

to decide what they believe after

53:18

experiencing this. And so I see

53:20

my role as offering lots of

53:22

options, showing lots of experiences, and

53:25

then helping people realize they can make a

53:27

choice. That's good. That's the

53:29

most empowering thing. Because you're right, it's not

53:31

a template. There is not a known

53:34

quantifiable endgame here for

53:37

anyone who has survived spiritual

53:39

abuse. And so I really appreciate

53:41

that you don't mandate where

53:44

the road is going. That feels powerful

53:47

to me. I have two more questions.

53:49

Well, I have a million. I really do have

53:51

a million questions, but I have two more that I really want to

53:53

hear you talk about, particularly

53:55

around this idea of embodiment

53:57

and an age. agency,

54:00

because these are related and these

54:03

are linked. We are shockingly

54:06

in an unbelievable age of

54:08

Roe v. Wade being reversed.

54:11

And many states, yours, mine,

54:14

have effectively rolled back

54:17

the rights and the resources for

54:19

women when it comes to

54:21

their reproductive choices and their decisions about

54:23

their own bodies. And reproductive

54:25

health is health. It is health. And

54:28

so this obviously did not happen in the vacuum.

54:31

And men are not the only ones behind these decisions,

54:34

although they are largely behind these

54:36

decisions. I want to hear

54:38

you talk about how I'm

54:41

jumping ahead to solutions. I think

54:43

you and I can discuss the

54:45

injustice of this. I want to talk

54:47

about how we appeal, not

54:50

just to the men, the men

54:52

in power, but the women who

54:55

may believe that these laws

54:57

are protecting them and protecting

55:00

whatever. And

55:03

how do we talk

55:05

about authoritarian control over

55:07

female bodies as not

55:09

just dehumanizing and

55:11

disempowering, but dangerous? People are going

55:13

to die. And they are. Women

55:16

will die and they're already dying. So I'd

55:18

like to hear you discuss this. Yeah,

55:21

I remember when Roe v.

55:23

Wade was overturned and I just, my

55:25

whole body went into this sensation

55:27

of shock. I just felt so

55:29

sick, which I didn't expect. But

55:32

it just reminded me so much of what it feels

55:35

like to not have agency over my body and

55:37

to be so controlled that I can't

55:39

predict whether I'm going to get good

55:42

health care if something

55:44

happens. And so

55:46

I think it's important to

55:48

talk about what's really happening here

55:50

with reproductive rights, because

55:53

what's happening with these laws is it's

55:56

preventing health care for things like ectopic

55:58

pregnancy and And

56:01

in the medical world, miscarriage

56:03

treatment is the same process a lot

56:05

of times as abortion. I think they

56:07

use the same words. And

56:10

so when politicians are legislating

56:12

from zero experience in the

56:14

medical field, they are

56:17

harming women's choices to

56:20

get health care because, you

56:22

know, an ectopic pregnancy can be fatal if untreated.

56:25

So women have died because of

56:27

this move to legislate.

56:31

And I think it's heartbreaking,

56:33

I think, that women are

56:35

being lied to that it's protection because

56:40

there's this push

56:42

to use the word pro-life. But

56:46

we keep seeing legislators

56:49

making rules that are

56:52

hurting people. And even

56:54

if you have a baby, the laws are not

56:56

protecting that baby. Like,

56:59

we have a broken system, right? It's

57:02

not pro-life, it's pro-birth.

57:05

And so I think we need a

57:07

bigger, holistic view of what's really happening

57:09

because the people at the top of

57:11

this, they don't actually, in

57:14

my opinion, care about women's

57:16

bodies. I think they are about controlling

57:18

them. And then the people

57:21

who are following are afraid

57:23

or they're being told lies to

57:25

be afraid of what the future

57:27

is. And so they're voting for

57:29

them. So I think education, and that's

57:33

uncomfortable, right? Like, I

57:35

grew up very evangelical, so learning about abortion

57:37

was very uncomfortable for me. But

57:39

it's completely changed my mind of what's actually happening

57:41

in the real world. And

57:44

I'll just share my experience here in Michigan. So

57:46

when Roe v. Wade was overturned, we have this,

57:48

I think it was like a hundred-year-old ban that

57:50

was going to go back into effect. And

57:53

so people, especially women

57:55

all over the state, rallied and

57:57

created a proposal. for

58:01

reproductive rights. It was called Reproductive Freedom

58:03

for All. And so I got

58:05

to sign a petition to put

58:07

it on the ballot and we got it on the

58:09

ballot. And then I

58:11

joined an organization to help educate

58:14

people about the proposal. And

58:17

I tried cold calling and that

58:19

was, I talk about this

58:21

at the end of the book, how it was really

58:23

difficult for me. It's so personal to

58:25

me. And I had this

58:27

experience where someone who mentioned the phone and

58:29

said, shame on you. And

58:31

all that shame came back. And I was like, I don't

58:33

know if I can keep calling and,

58:36

and talking about this issue. And

58:38

that's why I suggested

58:40

people to find the skills that

58:42

they already have and use those

58:44

to help promote education

58:47

about this issue. Because not all

58:49

of us are good at speaking.

58:51

Not all of us are good at phone calls. I'm

58:54

better at writing. So I've

58:56

tried to write about this.

58:58

If you're in your community, there's small

59:01

ways that you can take apart

59:03

in helping turn this

59:05

around. And that's what happened in Michigan.

59:07

So now our constitution, our

59:09

state constitution protects reproductive rights. So

59:12

that's huge. It's huge. It's

59:15

possible. And so I didn't

59:18

do a lot, but I helped.

59:20

And I think if we

59:22

focus on it, it's an impossible problem,

59:24

then we just get paralyzed. But

59:27

we can focus on our little world and what

59:29

we can do. And we don't

59:31

have to fix everything, but we can do

59:33

our best. And I think together we can

59:36

turn it around. And it's been said,

59:38

it's almost right at this

59:40

point, but we vote. It

59:43

matters. It matters who's in

59:45

charge. It matters who's legislating and who's

59:48

at our state governments and certainly at

59:50

our federal government too, but our local

59:52

staff is that's where this is being

59:54

redirected. And so women voting

59:57

in their own best interest will change.

1:00:00

everything. One last question.

1:00:03

Can you talk about what,

1:00:05

if anything, faith looks

1:00:08

like to you now? What

1:00:11

is that strata in your life

1:00:13

today? Sure. It's

1:00:16

been a long process of,

1:00:18

you know, deconstructing this fundamentalist

1:00:21

beliefs about me as a

1:00:23

woman. And when I left,

1:00:25

I still went to church for quite a while. And then

1:00:29

I realized patriarchy was

1:00:31

happening in that church just in a very

1:00:33

subtle way. They didn't use that word. I

1:00:36

wanted to write a resource for abuse survivors,

1:00:38

but I had to have my husband's permission

1:00:40

to do that. Oh God.

1:00:42

Okay. And so all these red

1:00:44

flags started building up and building up. And I

1:00:46

realized this is not a safe place for me

1:00:49

anymore. I tried my best to like be a voice,

1:00:52

but they weren't, they weren't

1:00:54

open to listening. And so

1:00:56

I eventually left and I haven't been back to

1:00:58

church since and that's because

1:01:00

once I had stopped going, I felt

1:01:02

like my body could relax

1:01:05

and come back to

1:01:07

some kind of regulation because I

1:01:09

was constantly in this environment where

1:01:12

I wasn't accepted for who I am. And

1:01:15

from there I've deconstructed my beliefs

1:01:18

quite a bit. And so I

1:01:20

don't follow a

1:01:22

specific faith tradition anymore, but

1:01:24

I do feel open to

1:01:26

spirituality and a lot of

1:01:29

the people I write to, they still

1:01:31

hold onto Christian faith. So I

1:01:33

want to hold all of that and I

1:01:35

think faith can be a really beautiful thing. And

1:01:38

for me, I really loved learning

1:01:41

from indigenous writers like Caitlin Curtis

1:01:44

and Randy Woodley and helped

1:01:46

me see there's this other broader view

1:01:49

of spirituality that I feel more at

1:01:51

home with than going

1:01:53

and sitting in a pew and doing

1:01:56

religion that way. So that's currently where I

1:01:58

am. I don't feel like I need to be at

1:02:00

a certain spot and I don't feel like I'm ever going to

1:02:03

reach an end result. I think that's just part of life. However,

1:02:06

you know, I'm 36. It'll

1:02:08

just keep rolling out. Keep

1:02:11

evolving, keep unfolding. And in my case,

1:02:13

keep expanding. Yeah. Way less things

1:02:15

I'm sure about, but way

1:02:17

broader things I'm curious about,

1:02:19

which is a wonderful evolution.

1:02:22

Last, you made the decision

1:02:24

to use your maternal

1:02:27

grandmother's name as your writing

1:02:29

pseudonym and Kate

1:02:31

West is your writing pseudonym.

1:02:33

Can you share with

1:02:35

us like where that decision came from?

1:02:38

Sure. I think any writer who's

1:02:40

trying to figure out your voice and what you're

1:02:42

trying to stay has that

1:02:44

question like, do I use my real name? Do I use

1:02:47

a pseudonym? And I found

1:02:49

a balance. So I use my real first

1:02:51

name. So Kate's my real first name. And

1:02:54

then West is my grandmother's, you

1:02:56

know, what we call the maiden name. And

1:02:59

for me, it's always

1:03:01

resonated with me, my

1:03:04

mother's heritage because they're

1:03:06

southerners, they grew

1:03:08

up in poverty, but the

1:03:11

women in my family have always

1:03:13

been the leaders and the strong

1:03:15

people of faith. And so to me,

1:03:18

it's kind of like a calling

1:03:20

back to that heritage and recognizing it

1:03:22

and trying to hold onto some kind

1:03:24

of legacy after losing so

1:03:27

much of my life. And at

1:03:29

the same time, recognizing it's

1:03:32

still my grandmother's father's last name. Right.

1:03:34

So there is this impossible

1:03:36

task of connecting

1:03:39

with a matrilineal line in the

1:03:42

current U.S. And so

1:03:44

I'm okay with that tension. I think it's

1:03:47

good to hold onto that tension and realize

1:03:50

we live in a patriarchal

1:03:52

society and we're navigating that

1:03:54

and we're trying to do our best to

1:03:56

make changes. But for

1:03:59

me, it's really me. meaningful to have

1:04:01

that name. And

1:04:03

I struggled with, do I use

1:04:05

my father's last name? Do I use my husband's last name? But

1:04:07

this to me feels more like

1:04:09

me. Like that? Okay.

1:04:12

You've done it. You've done it. And

1:04:15

you've written about it in risk,

1:04:17

which we've barely scratched the surface

1:04:19

here. Truly, it's a

1:04:21

layered story. And so can

1:04:25

you just tell my listening community where

1:04:27

to follow you, where to find you, where

1:04:29

to find your book, where

1:04:31

if they are feeling

1:04:34

really drawn to Tears

1:04:36

of Eden, where

1:04:38

they can find more information about that,

1:04:40

all of it. Great. Yeah.

1:04:42

My website, katewest.com, I spell

1:04:45

my first name C-A-I-T. That's

1:04:48

where you can find I have a resource page there.

1:04:50

And that includes a link to Tears of Eden. It

1:04:53

also includes my story, links

1:04:55

to my book and events

1:04:57

that are coming up. So I'm going to be doing

1:04:59

a little bit of traveling this summer. And one of

1:05:02

my favorite parts of writing this book is getting to

1:05:04

talk to people. So I really hope

1:05:06

I can do more of that is connecting

1:05:08

with people. I'm also on social media at

1:05:10

Kate West writes on most platforms.

1:05:12

So you can find me there too.

1:05:15

Thank you. All right. Thank

1:05:17

you for bringing

1:05:20

your story to bear our world because to your

1:05:22

earlier point, you could have not. You could have

1:05:24

just moved right on and put it in the

1:05:26

rear view mirror and acted like

1:05:28

this was just something behind you.

1:05:30

But instead you're using it to

1:05:32

heal and to encourage other people

1:05:35

who need it at this moment

1:05:37

in their life. And so proud

1:05:39

of you. And I'm so glad

1:05:41

for you that you've built a

1:05:43

beautiful life out of what

1:05:45

you want and of who you are and

1:05:48

where you want to go. And so it's so

1:05:50

hopeful. It's ultimately

1:05:52

hopeful. And

1:05:55

this possibility exists for

1:05:57

everyone. It really does. You've

1:06:00

got to make some hard choices to get there, obviously,

1:06:02

which you've made. But what

1:06:05

an encouragement, like what

1:06:07

a truly an inspiration to go,

1:06:10

this is possible. And so

1:06:12

I'm excited for whoever's listening today going, oh my God,

1:06:14

oh my God, maybe,

1:06:16

maybe me too. So everybody, I

1:06:18

will put all those links up for you so you

1:06:21

can have it in one stop shop. And

1:06:24

I'm so happy to have met you. And

1:06:26

I'm so glad that our past crossed eight

1:06:28

years ago when I was also kind of

1:06:30

clawing my way out of

1:06:32

some of the system that I was deeply

1:06:34

embedded in at the time. And

1:06:37

it's just exciting to know that

1:06:39

freedom and liberation and autonomy gets

1:06:41

even more expansive the more you push

1:06:44

into it. So true. So

1:06:46

true. Thanks for being on today. Thanks

1:06:48

for having me. All

1:06:51

right, you guys. As

1:06:54

mentioned, Kate and I really barely scratched the surface,

1:06:56

even though I kept her on way past time.

1:06:59

I'm proud of her. I really am. I'm

1:07:01

proud of her and grateful for all

1:07:04

the primarily women, but also men

1:07:06

that she is lending a

1:07:09

raft to out in the

1:07:11

middle of the ocean saying, climb on. There's another

1:07:13

way. As mentioned, if you go

1:07:15

over to jenhatmaker.com and to the podcast tab, I'm

1:07:17

going to have this episode. Should you like to

1:07:20

reshare it? We are so grateful when you do

1:07:22

that. I can't tell you how

1:07:24

many people have told me everywhere

1:07:27

I travel about particular

1:07:29

podcast episodes that changed

1:07:32

their trajectories. Podcast

1:07:35

matter. Sometimes just hearing a story

1:07:37

in the safety of your air

1:07:39

pods is enough impetus

1:07:43

to start something new, to

1:07:45

dismantle something toxic. And

1:07:48

I'll never get over that. This might be one of those.

1:07:51

Also over there, I will have a roundup

1:07:53

of all the links mentioned, where to follow

1:07:55

Kate on socials, where to find her book,

1:07:58

where to get connected to... peers have

1:08:00

eaten everything. So thank

1:08:02

you for listening. This whole series

1:08:04

is firehock on the matriarchy,

1:08:07

which we named Tonganjika a

1:08:09

little bit. And this sense

1:08:12

of female power and agency

1:08:15

is obviously near and dear

1:08:17

to me. And

1:08:20

I'm passionate about using this

1:08:22

space to create

1:08:24

freedom and liberation for women. All

1:08:27

right, more to come. If you

1:08:29

haven't already subscribed to the show, but do so. You

1:08:32

will never miss an episode. So

1:08:34

wherever you listen to podcasts, just hit the subscribe

1:08:36

button and it'll show up for you a week

1:08:38

after week. We are delighted to serve you and

1:08:42

can't wait for more in this series. All right, you guys see you next week.

1:08:46

The For the Love podcast with

1:08:48

Jen Hatmaker is a presentation of

1:08:51

Odyssey and produced by 4 Eyes

1:08:53

Media with Lauren Eichsling, producer, Lauren

1:08:55

Winfield, associate producer, Abby Stevens, production

1:08:57

director, and Gregory DeMario, production assistant.

1:09:00

Audio engineers are Andrew Wester and John

1:09:02

Furr. Odyssey's executive producers

1:09:04

are Jenna Weiss-Berman and Lee Reece

1:09:06

Dennis. Special thanks to

1:09:09

the team at Odyssey, Maura Curran,

1:09:11

Melissa Wester, Matt Casey, Kate Hutchinson,

1:09:13

Eric Donnelly, Erin Constantino, Kurt Courtney,

1:09:16

and Hilary Shuff. Listen and

1:09:18

follow For the Love and Odyssey podcast on

1:09:20

the Odyssey app or wherever you get your

1:09:22

podcasts. This

1:09:28

is a production of 4 Eyes Media.