We Can Do Hard Things with Glennon Doyle - 158. CULTS Part 2: How Intuition Can Save Us with Sarah Edmondson

Episode Date: December 8, 2022

Glennon, Abby, Amanda, and Sarah Edmondson continue their conversation:  1. “Love bombing” and other red flag strategies used by cults to reel people in.   2. The jarring similarities between cults and abusive relationships – and how in both your best qualities are used against you. 3. What to do if someone you love is pulled into QAnon, 4chan, or another conspiratorial culture.   4. The moment Sarah realized she had been initiated into a sex pyramid, and how she escaped.  5. The responsibility she felt – after having been such an avid recruiter – to expose the truth of NXIVM and help take down its leaders.   CW: Discussion of cult culture and sexual coercion About Sarah:  Sarah Edmondson is an actor, podcaster, author, and cult-recovery advocate.   Sarah has starred in a number of TV series, yet she is most recently known for her real-life saga escaping the multi-level marketing company NXIVM – and DOS, a “secret sisterhood” within NXIVM – which can also be seen on HBO’s The Vow. Sarah’s memoir Scarred shares her true story from the moment she joined NXIVM, to her harrowing fight to get out and bring its founder to justice. Sarah co-hosts the podcast A Little Bit Culty with her husband Anthony ‘Nippy’ Ames, and lives in Atlanta with her husband and two sons.   TW: @sarahjedmondson IG: @sarahedmondson   Sarah’s resource page: https://www.sarahedmondson.com/resources Steven Hassan’s BITE model: https://freedomofmind.com/cult-mind-control/bite-model/

Welcome back to We Can Do Hard Things. We are back with the really fascinating and amazing and just lovable as hell is Sarah Edminson. Brave. Yes. Brave, brave. Brave, brave. And Sarah is here to talk to us about her experience with Nexium. Please, please go back to the last episode and listen to it.

And then we'll catch you back here. Content warning that we will be discussing cult, culture, and sexual coercion. Sarah, we're going to start with what we ended with at the last episode was the moments after your initiation into nexium where you're starting to figure out that this is all nefarious, but how the hell are you going to get yourself out? So start us there and tell us you had some friends who were starting to come to you and say this isn't right, but you were trying to hold on to your beliefs, your community, your collateral, your life. Her whole world. It was like our whole world. Right. Take us back to that time and let us know. And I also want to know

the moment when you figured out what that brand really was. So those happened in two separate moments. I believe the first moment where things fell into place is when Mark and I had that honest conversation under his NDA. And we actually had a pretty clear picture of what we now know as DOS in terms of women being collateralized to stay loyal and to subject themselves to be sexually intimate with Keith and for him to procure as much sex as he wanted through this blackmail MLM scheme. There was so much more that we didn't know that we found out later. But we had a pretty clear picture then and we knew that we had to get out.

And my world crumbled so quickly in that one conversation because everything rested on a key tenant, which I believe holds all of these groups in place. In my case, that Keith is good, or in some groups that like so-and-so is the prophet. You know, this person is the voice of God or whatever. As soon as you don't have that belief anymore, everything else crumbles.

And so many of the things that had made no sense to me over the years that I had to rationalize and put on the proverbial shelf, which is a metaphor we use a lot in cult recovery. It's like you see things, but you can't wrap your head around it as you put it on the shelf. You put the other thing on the shelf.

Same thing in an abusive relationship. They use a tone or they're, you know, a bit aggressive and you're like, did he just do that? No, we can't. And, you know, I'm going for this relationship and you put it on the shelf. But one day the final straw happens

and the shelf crumbles. When my shelf crumbled and I recognize, and Mark really helped me see this, that not only was Keith not who he said he was and it was all like a con. but he was what he taught us as a full suppressive. In other words, a psychopath or a sociopath. I didn't have all the terms yet,

but I just knew that he was very bad. I could see the whole thing for what it was in a moment. And part of that was recognizing that the brand, as I said, the branding itself didn't wake me up, but recognizing that the symbol was actually a cryptic monogram of his initials. And it was on my, you know, under my bikini line in my most intimate, area. And that sent me into quite a rage, quite a fury. And Mark and I very quickly recognized that we had to get out. And then I actually had Mark tell Nippy because I was still at

this point too afraid that if I broke my vow, somehow I thought I was safe under Mark's NDA. It didn't make any sense. Oh, yeah, I was the loophole. Yeah. Mark's the one saying it. Yeah. If Mark says it, then they won't release my collateral. And Mark told Nippy and And luckily, Nippy just got it, like, immediately. There was no humming and highing. Like, both of us were equally as relieved to figure this out and to get out. And there was like, I don't even know, maybe 24 hours of us just figuring out how to escape. We've seen what happened to people who left NXEM and how the company had gone out.

I say company, how the cult had gone after them. And we knew that we didn't want to get sued and spend the next 10 years in litigation. So the first step was to extract ourselves without raising alarms. and we'd seen other people try to have conversations and to confront the leadership. We knew that didn't work. So I spent a couple weeks basically being a double agent, and that was a very difficult time

because I had to lie to get out. I had to be like, oh, yeah, see you all the coach retreat. Love you, Lauren, and keep doing my penances and my collaterals and playing along. So they didn't suspect. Meanwhile, I was getting on the phone and telling Paige, my best friend, who I knew was going to Albany the next day for her initiation ceremony and rest everything to show her my brand over FaceTime and say, look, I know you're going for your ceremony. I want to show you what you're going to get. And this is what I believe it is.

And we like hatched a plan so that she'd be sick and not get on the plane. Meanwhile, as I'm like packing at my home in Albany and pretending to go to Toronto to see my alien ground. which was true actually at the time he was sick, but I used that as an excuse to not attend the coach training. It was probably the most stressful, crazy time of my whole life. And I just spent most of the time on the phone with people trying to tell them what had happened without putting myself at risk. So I set up for somebody else to tell people the details of the branding and just did what I could to save as many of the slaves as I could before they figured out that I was a defector, which they eventually did. And did a lot of the people that you told resist?

Or did they also have that reaction of Keith is good, Keith is good? You know what? Most of the people, like everyone in Vancouver, by the time we got back to Vancouver, like 10 days later, just the fact that we were resigning was enough for them. They didn't, they're like, if Sarah and Nipi aren't involved, I'm not, because they hadn't even met Keith and Nancy, most of them. The people that had moved to Albany and were in the inner circle, they had already been indocturated and they moved quickly to do this whole thing.

Like, it's just a sorority. And, you know, men brand each other all the time and that this is just about like, them not understanding that why can't women do it too? And this is nothing to do with nexium. They put out a statement that Keith had nothing to do with it. I mean, lies, lies, lies, lies, lies. So the people that confronted me and tried to get me to stay, I knew the people I could trust or not

because they'd say things to me like, but what specifically is bad about it, Sarah? And I'm like, if you don't know what's bad about branding, and it's like branding is you take a kid, like it's what farmers do to cattle. And they'd say something like, well, it's only that if you make it mean that. Because you make the meaning. Yeah, because I make the meaning.

Right. Right. You're making the meaning. So that's your fault. Yeah, I'm making the meaning. I'm like, no, that's what it means. That's what branding means. Yeah. And then I'd be like, go fuck yourself. Like, good luck. You're on the wrong side of history. Right. Mark and Nippy and I and Bonnie and Catherine, we had a war room set up in our, in our homes for a good few months to try to get the word out. And most people left. Most people left immediately. And then once the news with the branding, that just like, when they felt like at what point is branding people with your initials part of personal development?

Right. Well, and Sarah, tell us about how you went public. When did you decide to go public? Because there's, there's the war room. and there's the reaching out to people individually. But then when did we get this huge New York Times story that really broke open nexium to the entire world? With you on the cover? Yes. You were on the front page. Yeah.

Yeah. So that happened in stages as well in terms of like me knowing what I wanted to do. As soon as I found out that I was a defector, which by the way happened with somebody calling me being like, oh my God, I'm supposed to move to Albany? Like, is the branding true and all in distress? And I just said, do I need to show you my fucking brand? Do not move to Albany. And it turned out that that woman who had called me for help was already endorsed and already branded. And she was recording me to show that I was breaking my vow of secrecy. And that made me a defector.

And then they were coming after me. Then there was a legal case being made against me. Claire Bronfman came to Vancouver and tried to talk to the Vancouver police to get me arrested for fraud, mischief and theft because I wouldn't return the student files, which had all their credit card and address information, and everyone's intake forms with worst moment, worst decision, people's personal private secrets. And like, you're not getting these. And that was what she wanted. Because when I said I was going to leave, I was like, I'm going to step back and focus on my family when I was doing the double agent thing. They knew I was leaving, but they didn't know that I was upset. Right. So I had this whole plan to like leave in a way that wouldn't raise

flags for them. But once they knew I was a defector and they started coming after me and all these women in my center from Vancouver who were sharing with me that they were already recruited in DOS and given close up pictures of their, you know, of their vaginas, like sexy photos and intimate secrets. The more, more women that I found out about this, the more enraged I got. And so it changed in a very short period of time to be like, I just got to get my family out to be like, we got to take this fucking thing down. And I think you see that in the vow as I get more information. But ultimately, Mark and Bonnie and Catherine and Nipi and I had been talking to the New York Times that summer. It was like a month after we got out. But the story didn't air to the end of October. And

in those five months, we're probably the scariest times of our lives because we didn't know what was going to happen. Claire was trying to get me arrested. We'd given them the story. Barry Meyer, who wrote the story for the New York Times, had spoken to a number of DOS slaves, not just me. Some of them want to be anonymous, that they keep changing their mind, if they want to be in it or not. Like, we wanted more people on the record.

And unfortunately, I was the only one that was willing to be public. And that felt very alone and very scary, but I felt like it's what I needed to do because I'd been so loud for so many years about Keith being, you know, the noble humanitarian. And then to find out that he wasn't,

I felt like I had to compensate on the other side and be equally as loud as to what was really going on. And that meant, you know, putting it all in the line. And I didn't really think about the ramifications of that or even just like how somebody might read that New York Times cover and never get beyond the sex called headline. And that's how I'm known. It didn't matter to me. If this is the proof of the emotional abuse that's been going on for years,

now there's physical proof, then I have to do it. And I knew that there were women inside that had been slaves for even way longer than I ever had been. So I felt very driven to fix things. And I did. We did. I thank God that you did, Sarah, because even though there had been outreach at points to investigators, that they had never followed up. on that. And the New York Times piece would not have been published if you did not go on the record.

And the New York Times piece is what the FBI looked at to decide to start the investigation that led to Keith Reneery's prosecution and is the reason he's behind bars. And if you had not done that, none of that would have happened. I can only imagine what it's been like for you. actually want to talk about that in the aftermath of that New York Times article with people just reading the surface of the story. But I don't see you as a sex cult person at all. Like I see you and have read you and have watched you as a woman who is a seeker who got indoctrinated and then got herself out and got other people out. And I see it as nuanced and complicated and hard. And I know there's responsibility in it and also heroic. Yeah.

You're a warrior. To me, what character is is when things go wrong, how do you respond? It might have been easier in an easier life, easier path in some ways to just go away and say nothing. But you not only stood up for yourself and your family, but for all of the women that were still in, whether it's your responsibility or not. like your character to step up in such a public way. To me, I just, I don't, I don't know if there is a higher caliber of character, somebody, when things go wrong to say, this is wrong, and I need to say why. And by the way, you accept the responsibility in your life for what you've contributed to. That's what I just, I find so much love for you in my heart around you coming forward. It's really. It's really. And it wasn't just women.

It was girls, too. I mean, there were teenagers. Yeah. Yep. In this as well. Have you ever hit a point at work where everything just feels heavy? Not just a bad week, but the kind of burnout where you're staring at your laptop thinking, I can't keep doing it like this.

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price. Sarah, was it, it was me too, right? Oh, yeah. Times, like they weren't even putting the story out. It wasn't like vibing enough for them. The timing was crazy.

I kept saying to bury, like, when is this coming out? When is this coming out? Meanwhile, Naxium's having corporate retreats. They had a Vanguard week with very low attendance, but people still went inside. They're talking about how well, well, Sarah and Nipi are going to get arrested because they're criminals. And that was scary because, you know, Claire Brockman has terrorized people with the legal system for years. And has like billions of dollars.

Yeah, Claire Braffman is the heiress of the Seagram fortune. And her role was funding the bank. Many things. but in part to fund all of the litigation that was going after anyone who tried to leave or anyone who tried to talk again. So she flew to Canada to try to get you arrested for this. So Me Too comes out. And this is so touching to me because when all the women that come together who aren't even together. And so Me Too happened and then New York Times decided that it was a good time. The wine scene story broke.

And I remember waking up and seeing this hashtag Me Too. And sharing very cryptically my Me Too about what happened in Albany. And then the New York Times story broke. It was like the zeitgeist was ready for the story. And truthfully, had this story come out two or three years prior, I don't even know if it would have had the same results in terms of a woman like Myra Penza, my personal hero, reading the New York Times and be like, what the fuck is this guy doing? We have to investigate.

Because it had been investigated for years. And we still don't know if the wheels were being greased by Bromfen Money in the northern district, which is different than the district where Wira prosecuted Keith. Or people were looking the other way. We still don't know. And then that, I think, will eventually come to light. But to be on the tail of Me Too, which ironically is what the current loyalists, and I don't want to give too much attention to but they're saying that we use the me too thing to like play the victim.

But for us, it could not have been better timing. And then, yeah, the story exploded. We just lived in the aftermath of that chaos for a while, but then also felt like, okay, that was the biggest punch we could throw New York Times. And it did a lot of damage, but it didn't destroy the company. And we found out later that what actually, destroyed the company was that we had shut down people's credit cards. My admin person went into the system. My assistant went in and shut down people's recurring payments and like erased all

their information so they couldn't even charge their credit cards. And we had all the students that we were in touch with. We're talking about hundreds of people. Call Visa, call AMAX and say, you know, I signed up for personal development. Turned out it's actually a sex cult and on the inside and women are being branded with the leader's initials and I want my money back. And when a company has enough chargebacks requests, then the companies will shut down their access to funds. And that's actually what killed the company. Not the courts, not the New York Times, but the credit card charges done by an admin. If we're ever going to change the world, I feel like it would be Dina. Yeah. Right? It would be our admin. It's like she's like the biggest badass on a, yes.

So that happened. Can you tell us like what was your life like after the New York Times story came out? And what was the world's reaction to you? And how did you deal with it as a precious, soft human being? It's a hard time to even remember because it was so stressful. I don't know how, like, grounded or, like, in my body in any way that I was. But what I do remember, and keep in mind that we'd been filming at this point because we didn't know we were making the vow. We just knew we had to document things. So there was always a camera around and, which I got.

very used to and like often forgot about but we felt like this had this we had to make sure that this was on camera so we could and anything defend ourselves because we still thought that clara was coming after us yeah and you were recording like all of your conversations yes everything was recorded so like that's yeah that's amazing love watching the vow because it's like real your actual voices yes it is very real there's not it's not reenactment um there's some parts that are reenactment but you know what that is. It's obvious. But yeah, there was, from that point,

it was a lot of media requests. I went on 2020, which was another big punch. It was not the best interview. It's 2020. It's like little sound bites. It's not like this where you get into the nuance and the gritty and the feeling.

It's like just clips. And that was really difficult because between that and the New York Times, people didn't know what they're looking at. And even differently than now, now we have so many documentary about cults and I feel like people are so much more aware. Even five years ago, people wrote, I just, I know not to do it now, but I couldn't

help myself to look at the comments. And it was horrible. It was, it was very dehumanizing. And, you know, what the fuck? Why would she, like, why would she even say yes to that? Like, of course. That was the one part, Sarah, you should know in the, in the vow. We got, we made it through the whole thing. We weren't talking back to you at all. But the second you started looking at the comments, Abby and I were like, no. She's lost her mind finally. Yeah. Ironically, when the vow came out,

that's when the slew of comments in the other way came to me. Like, no, we believe you. Like, we got your back and you're brave and all. Like, it's been so positive. I can't even tell you, like, my life now is so not that. Like, I feel very understood

and I really attribute that to the vow. Like, I feel the vow really did us a solid in terms of showing the world what it looks like and what we thought we were building. And, you know, I've had friends over the years that supported me. And, you know, Sarah's just doing her thing. I didn't necessarily think it was a cult. But, like, it was weird, you know? And now they'd be like, if I had known it was that, I totally would have joined.

Like, to have people say, I would have joined that. That's very vindicating to me because when you otherize groups like this and like, that's so weird and I would never be a part of that, it doesn't give people. any knowledge or any educationary nuggets of wisdom. And I think that the vow does that and why I continue to speak about it in our podcast as well is that I want to give people the nuggets of what those good things look like when you join these groups. Let's talk about that. Let's talk about high control groups because that's something, that's one, a term that we use, right, to describe this kind of situation. And I'd love to talk about it in a wide way because, you know, we,

a lot of us have experience with abusive relationships. A high control group can be two people. A high control group could be a family. I feel surprised when people say that this is so stunning and I could never be involved in this. Abby and I were talking about we both come from Catholic backgrounds and Catholic Catholicism. Again, does a lot of beautiful things in the world. And also is a group with a shared dogma that has a belief system that often encourages its followers to rise above their intuition and not listen to themselves. I mean, the Pope has lots of robes, has a sex scandal, right? Yeah. At the tippity top of it, and people stay. Yeah. So I just, I feel like we need to be humble in this conversation. And let's talk about you, knowing what you know now, talk to us about what a high control group is

and what we should be looking for. Absolutely. And I appreciate that because the word cult in and of itself actually isn't great because it has a perception, like I said, from the beginning that is very sensationalized and is very 1970s, 1980s, Jim Jones, Kool-Aid, robes, all those things. And othering allows us to be like, oh, that's over there. That's not me. Yes. And I will say just a little tangent about that, that every single person who's ever said to me that, yeah, you know, I really appreciated your story, but like I would never happen to me

because I'm so much more skeptical or I'm more discerning or whatever. And then later in the conversation, they're telling me about something that they do. Like, oh, yeah, I just do meditation. I'm part of transcendental meditation. And it's like, really helpful. I'm like, well, that's also a fucking cult. Like, your mantra is not a problem for you.

Like, I meditate as well. I don't have a mantra, but like I, that organization has so much scandal behind it, but you haven't researched. That's the thing is that many people dabble. I did Bickram's yoga. No, yeah, that guy. Like that guy, right? I love yoga, but it has to be non-dogmatic, like not part of the thing.

Non-denominational yoga. Because here's what I think. This is my commitment to, because I know I'm a seeker, I'm obsessed with purpose. Community, although I'd rather like not actually be in person, but like community, purpose, healing, seeking, all the things. My theory is everything a little bit, but nothing all the way. Yes. Nothing all the way. Because what I think is that when I look at my people, the seekers, the ones who get in trouble are the ones who think they've found. Seekers cannot find. Yes. If you are a seeker who thinks

you have found, you are likely in a cult. Okay. The job of the seeker is to seek until we die. There's nowhere to land. There's no solid ground. There's nobody who has solved humanity or life. no science of emotion, there is no sense to be made of it. Yeah. Yeah. So the purpose of the seeker is to keep seeking. You were like a seagull who never gets to land. Absolutely. And it's, it's something that, like we recently had probably our biggest guest of all time we'd Eckhart Tolle on our podcast. And we got some shit from our audience. But they were like, I thought this was a safe space. People often equate spirituality with culty, right? Especially if they've been in a spiritual group. There's lots of overlap and the words sound the same. They call it word salad where things

don't make sense and you're like trying to make it make sense. Other people found it very helpful, but it was been our most controversial episode. And I said to our audience, I'm really sorry. People were upset and it brought up stuff. Apologies. Like I gave a trigger warning, but obviously it wasn't enough. But I also said, I never said that he's the way or like this is the only way. I'm like, this is a book that was helpful for me and my healing at the time. And we were having a conversation with an expert, which is what we say we do, experts, whistleblowers, and survivors. He's an expert in the field of spirituality with billions of books sold. Hey, we get to talk to him. Let's find out what he has to say. If you don't like it, skip it.

So what's the difference between an expert and a cult leader? Talk to us about this. This is what I said to my team because some people are like, I'm worried about you, Sarah, that you found a new guru. I'm like, I never said he was my guru. But you can take the tools and put them in your life. And that's going to be fine. Put them in your toolbox. But when you make the tools your life, that's when it's a problem. And I said, if I start, like, working with Eckhart Toley and joining his inner circle and following him around the world, and, you know, then you can be concerned and call an interventionist. But I'm not saying that. I'm not doing that. So I'm self-aware about my journey now. I'm very skeptical.

It's taken me a long time. So I think the thing that I look for, and I have to go back to my own experience, are the things that make you right for abuse. And it's a little bit different in each group, but the same template, like when we have people on like X-Jhovah's Witness and X-FLDS and ex-Scientologists, the things that happen in them are the exact same thing every time. And it almost always starts with an invitation to something like a potluck or a party or a personality quiz or a yoga class. And there's, in that invitation, the person feels really good about where they are. And they call it love bombing. And I'm not just a preface to say, like not everyone who's nice to you is trying to love bomb you.

But you are saying we should not go to parties. Definitely not go to parties or potlucks or dance parties or personality. But it's a good thing to be skeptical of. And I am certainly very nervous about any invitation and I always do my research. But usually like it's that bait and switch. Come, you know, come check out this. We're having a book club or a lot of political cults. You know, we're raising money for this or that.

And people get involved. And then they find this camaraderie. They find this. And for me, hugely, belonging. such a drive for me my whole life. What does love bombing look like? Love bombing is, and we were taught to do this, and I thought it was a good thing, but like when people came to our intro nights, we'd welcome them and be like, and be interested

in them. And I genuinely was interested in them. So I'd be like, oh my God, Glenn and I heard so much about you. Abby said that you're like really a seeker, and I'm a seeker too. And can I get your glass of water here? And like, let's, and talk to me about your life. And I heard you're a writer and like, what's, you really want it. I want to know about you and connect with you.

And for me, that was really authentic. But I also knew that I was creating an atmosphere in the center for people. And people would say this after my info nights. I don't know what this is, but I want to be a part of it because it feels good. This show is sponsored by Midi Health. Parymenopause and menopause aren't personality flaws or phases. They're medical transitions. And yet nearly three out of four women who actively seek help are sent home with

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Visit helloalma.com slash we can to schedule a free consultation today. That's hello-a-l-m-a-com slash W-E-C-A-N. So it's one of the top ten things that are like characteristics of, what we're calling cultish, which is the idea that like the brand new people are immediately showered with praise and love and to make them feel a sincere sense of belonging. And like, I want more of that. Yes. And connection. And it's across the board are probably one of the most meaningful interviews that we've all had recently was with Evan Rachel Wood about her experience with Marilyn Manson. And she talks about that a lot as well. And,

like when he met her, he picked her out of a crowd and very much groomed her. It wasn't like, hey, you're going to be in a relationship with me and I'm going to exploit you. He made her feel special and that she thought that she was having this relationship with a cool, older, artsy alternative guy, you know, and there was love bombing in that grooming process. And this happens in relationships all the time. It's like one of the number one things that a narcissist will do is bomb you with love so that when you deliver the first zinger of, like in the game, they call it nagging when there's somebody where you're bringing somebody down, then the person who's been love bombed thinks that they can only get that love again from that person.

Okay, so the difference between kindness and love bombing is love bombing is just too much. It's right away. It's a showering. There's no build. There's no, like, actual connection. It's just immediate shower of attention. There's a motivation. So the intent.

Right. It's the intent for them. feel to people. I would feel. It's a tricky thing because if you, if you're not aware of it, you might not be able to tell the difference. Right. Which is why all of these things together, they have to be viewed together. I mean, this is why it's so sneaky. If you have that experience of love bombing, it might just be a person who's genuinely excited to see you. It's only when it's also connected to isolation and with a threat of your leaving. Yes. That was the next on my list was isolation.

And all groups seek to isolate their followers from the outside world, either physically in a compound or emotionally in a way that's, you know, like if I had a problem with anything in XAM, I could never tell anyone outside. If I could tell my mom, like, I don't like it actually that, you know, Keith is blah, blah, blah, then my mom would, because she knew the whole time and she was keeping the doors open for me to come back to her. And I knew she disapproved of him. I knew she thought that he was a megalomaniac, but I was like, oh, she just doesn't understand.

So I couldn't give her anything, right? So any concern, you had to go inside the group. And that's key. A man named Dr. Stephen Hassan has this thing called the Bight Model, where he breaks down the different things that a cult will do to control in a bite being, controlling behavior, controlling information, thoughts, and emotions. So all the red flags to look out for are the leadership controlling the how, how, the cult member behaves. So that would be things like restricting calories or sleep deprivation. I mean, my first five day, I slept very, very little because the days were so long.

And the response to that would be like, oh, we're just trying to give me your money's worth. There's always a response to how this thing is not that. Or like with the calories, but like people are choosing. Like, who are you to say how they diet or don't diet? Right. Right. So there's always a It's physiological, right? Like when you don't have the sleep, your prefrontal cortex is exactly primed to be in the most vulnerable place to be receiving those messages. I mean, it's like the idea of time and food deprivation being this magic space. Okay. So it wasn't just that Reneery liked skinny women. Or walking in the middle of the night. It was like, right. It was that, oh, he always walked people in the middle of the night. Yeah, he's always walking. And wasn't he always like the one person, well, all of all of the leadership saying like, well, if somebody doesn't want to be here, then that's great, right?

Because like their intuition is like, something's going on here. They're like, let just go. We don't want you here. And so you keep like the core people who are there are the ones that will buy into all of the dogma and all of the rules that that require somebody to stay in the actual. fault itself. Yes, I was a good sheep. And I always have been a good girl, but I'm also internally a bad girl. Like, there were, like, Nippy, for example, they wouldn't promote him because they called him defiant because you wouldn't do the things that we had to do. But I would do them because I wanted the rewards. I wanted the promotions. I wanted to keep getting rewarded.

But then I started to realize, like, nobody was checking. So I said that I was doing the things. Do you know what I mean? Like, I would be like, yeah, I entered my coach points. Well, no, I didn't, because it's so tedious. There's the cult identity and there's the pre-cult identity. And I learned that when I got out because I was like, I went right back to my pre-cult identity very, very quickly. And I realized that I was doing the things that I needed to do to like survive in the group, but I didn't really believe in all of them. So I was able to snap out of it very quickly. Okay, so isolation. Yeah, back to red flags. Isolation. I mean, one of the huge red flags that I see

all the time is when there's a leader who's accountable to nobody. There's no checks and balances around them. This is the person that can get away with anything and no one's going to tell them no. Right? And often they're narcissistic. They're charming. They have this following that people just will do whatever. Like no one's giving them a reality check because it's like you see this a lot with movie stars as well. They just have an entourage around them that are just a bunch of yes people. So it's the same thing with a cult and you can't, a huge red flag is you can't question. any any criticism is met with gaslighting and we i called it in my book the the nexium flip right if i if i were to say you know i don't i don't know how i feel about xy and z well you seem that reactive you

should get an e m on that and you know or sit with that or journal on it you seem invested and work on that before we talk about it so it because i was reactive about it it meant that my issue had no merit. That's why we presume Nancy didn't call me back when I left her the voicemail when I left because I was too angry. Well, if you teach people that being reactive is wrong, then that's a really good way to make sure no one ever reacts to what you're doing. Exactly. And another thing they taught us was speaking dishonorably is wrong, which is true. Like if we have a mutual friend who is, you know, I'm trying to share information. I could say to you, like, oh, that person's a real dick, you know, that's dishonorable.

Or I could be like, oh, this person's working through some of their anger stuff right now. That would be more honorable. So Keith was protected anytime anyone said anything negative. Even if somebody said, oh, I just met Keith. He seems like kind of like just a normal, like it's kind of a schlub or so, whatever. Yeah, I actually even heard Nancy say multiple times because she would always ask people after forums, who's here seeing Vanguard for the first time? And people would put up their hand.

And she said, what do you think? Isn't he amazing? Isn't he amazing? Oh, clap, clap, clap. And somebody would always say, yeah, it's weird. Like, he's just kind of a normal guy. And she go, isn't it incredible that he's able to bring himself to, like, our level and just relate at that level? Because he was also told, one of the things that you were told is that he scored, like, one of the highest IQ test in the world.

Did he just make that shit up? I'm clear that that's a fucking love. It's because it's like Kim Jong-il saying that he beat Tiger Woods at golf. Like, or Trump saying he's the best. bested that ever bested and everyone else is the worst worst. When he did that test, it was a take home test and he had a bunch of women helping him fill it out. Of course. That's amazing. Two on the nose. Isn't the other... Yeah, that's how we got that. Speaking of Trump, the dynamic of isolating is this idea of preempting that the people that are in your life pre, you being part of this,

will not understand. They will resent and be. jealous of your evolution. So they will say that this is a cult. They will say that this is bad. And in a way that kind of perfectly insulates you because whenever people express concern, you're like, oh, it's working. Yeah. What I'm supposed to be doing is working, which is the exact same disaster cycle of calling media fake news. Because then any time, you're going, someone who is in the MAGA sees that there's any news report about anything bad that's happened. It's further evidence of the underlying doctrine, which is the media is going to try to take us down because we're so great. Yeah. It's good. Everything becomes propaganda. Yes, which is the second

thing in the in the bite model. So we've talked about control of behavior and then control of information. And we were specifically told not to read the articles about Keith because that would be dishonorable. What's being said about Keith this is honorable. You wouldn't want to change our internal representation of Keith. That would be violent. So we just didn't even read it. Wow. And that's so much control of information. That's huge right now. Control of thoughts. We could do like an hour podcast on each thing and all the different subcategories. But just to give the overall structure to Stevens by all, it's really, really helpful. And his books have helped me a lot. Also, I would say for anyone listening who thinks they have a family member in a cult and they want to know what to do or how to approach.

it, his books are great. Wonderful. Control of what was the B? Behavior. Behavior, information, thoughts. The emotions. It's so, just because of like the work that we do here and untamed, I know that we all can't live all of our lives based on all of our emotions. There's ways of using emotions as information. But it is fascinating to me the emphasis of what you were taught at nexium that emotions were really something just to overcome. Yes. That this idea of state

of state of being that something happens in the world, something happens in the world, and then you make meaning of it in your mind. And then you have an emotion about it. So whatever the emotion is, you have chosen by the meaning you make. So if somebody says to me, you are a total fucking asshole, then I make meaning in my mind that that person is mean and doesn't like me. And so I feel angry and sad. But that means that I have chosen that anger. and sadness. Right. And so I have made myself a victim. That is my problem because I didn't have to think that. Or the meaning that you attach to what asshole is based on your life. Right. Right. So you've attached meaning to that. And because they've said this, now you are a victim to this thought,

this emotion. And it's only up to you to be able to, what is it called? Stimulus and response. So you have to break the stimulus so that your response is different. Right. But my point is that like, wow, is that the opposite of what we try to encourage, which is that when a woman is angry or heartbroken, that that is a signal to her, that we're not always acting exactly upon our anger, but that that is a signal, not that there's something wrong with us that we need to change internally, but perhaps it's an arrow pointing towards something. thing in this family, in this relationship, in this institution that should change and it's valid. Yes.

So what an abandonment of self. I mean, that has to be a key to all of these groups is just the recurrent encouragement of abandonment of self and deferrence to a different authority. Exactly. There's an example you give in your book about how Abby's able to relax and it causes you Glenn to violently tidy. Yeah. You're right?

Loudly. Loudly. Yeah. So I do the same thing with Nippy and we're still working on this. But I was laughing because what you described in your book, in your enravelling of that, is kind of what I would have looked at as how I would EM somebody. Is you looking at, okay, it's not really about Abby, I mean, yeah, Abby relaxing. It's about what does it mean about you, right?

That you can't. And then that memory came up about how like your parents would come home. and then you'd have to show your productivity. And we'd dig in around how your productivity is separate from your worth and your worth stuff, whether you're produced or not. And then you'd be able to be you and relax or not relax. And Abby's chillness wouldn't trigger you. That's what a good EM would have looked like.

Right? So the tool of an EM and breaking a stimulus response could have been healthy. And I think there was times that it was. But it's a tool. So it's like the knife in the hand of a murderer or the knife in the hand of a surgeon. So if Abby was doing something more disqualification, constructive, like, say, branding people. And Glenn, and you were like, I don't like that. That bothers me. I could say, well, why does it bother you? And take you down a path where the branding

doesn't mean that. And what it means is just a symbol for people's growth. And it's what they're doing in a sorority, which is a really positive thing. And I can change the meaning for you versus you coming up with the meaning of yourself about your self-worth and not being reactive to it. So that's what he did. He changed people's reaction to something horrific. something that people should and have been in the world completely outraged by. That's the manipulative piece is that there were aspects of the reaction, the work with emotions that were really healthy and good, similar to what you've talked about, and then twisted for someone's goes back to intention.

Intention or the extreme of it, taking it to the extreme. Extreme. That is so powerful. And it's this wild paradox because there's one person, who's the alleged genius at the top, who is the all-knowing. And yet, every single person is responsible for everything that happens to them. Right. So, like, if something terrible happens to someone else, you called that into yourself.

You made that happen. What did you do to make that happen in your life? So you are perversely responsible for anything that is, bad going on in the group toward you, but you are not able to rely on your thoughts or emotions. Which is a huge inconsistency. And that's another one of my red flags is when the dogma is inconsistent. And I'm sure you've seen this where it's like, you know, Jesus loves everyone except for gay people. Right. Hugely inconsistent. That makes no sense.

Or Jesus wants us to beat all of our weapons into plowshares, but please vote for more guns. Right. Right. Yes. It's a new year and instead of trying to reinvent myself, I've been asking a simpler question. What would actually support me right now? And honestly, a big part of that answer is my home. I want my space to feel calmer, more functional and a little more like a place that can reflect my goals and energy for this year, which is why I've been turning to one. Wayfair. It's truly a one-stop shop for everything your home needs this season. What surprised me most was how easy it was to find exactly what I wanted in my style and within my budget, whether you're organizing kids' rooms, upgrading your work from home setup, tackling clutter, or just trying to make weeknight dinners easy. Wayfair really does have everything. Your home doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to support the life you're living right now. Get organized, refreshed, and back on track this new year for way less.

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10 out of 10. Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Don't wait. Go to quince. slash hard things for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada too that's kU-I-N-C-E dot com slash hard things to get free shipping and 365 day returns quince.com slash hard things when you were saying about how there's like really valuable things to be taken from what you learned and it's just whether you're following it with

kind of enthralled passion and it's got to be your whole world. It reminded me, Amanda Palmer posted something that said, I was totally devoted to evangelicalism when I was a kid because I always felt so moved during worship songs at my mega church. Then I felt the exact same way at a One Direction concert and realized I was just devoted to live music. No, but that's right. It's like this feeling. Yes.

Yes. So there's like there might be a certain thing that is really good. It's just that maybe you can have that without, you know, attaching your family, career, life, and every aspect of your being to the community. Right. Which they tell you is the opposite of what you should do. Yes. And that was the other red flag on my list is like what happens when you leave the group. Can you leave the group without being shunned?

without becoming a villain, which is 100% why. I mean, people came and went from X-EM in the early days, and it wasn't a big deal. It's when they left and they had something bad to say. And then they would always be a lawsuit or they'd be dragged through court. And the main thing that I say to people when they're like, but how do I know if this group is good?

I said, well, have people left it? Is there any smoke? If there's smoke, there's fire. If you ask the leadership, what about this person who's saying X, Y, and Z, and there's a lawsuit, how do they respond to that, allegation. Are they saying, oh, that's just a lover scorned, huge red flag? Or they're responsible in the way that they handle it is you have to discern that and you have to do your research. But ultimately,

most of these groups have some sort of lawsuit or allegation. That's probably true. Sarah, I want to end with a couple things. First of all, I know so many people who leave the church, right, who leave evangelical church or whatever, because they can't anymore, because of the dogma, because of the danger, because of all of it. But there's a real loss. Yeah. Because it's like the groups that are a little bit culty have also managed to create, whether it's good or real or whatever,

but this closeness of belonging that we all kind of want and it feels like so hard to get. Is there a loss? Yes. There was a huge loss. We called it the cult-shaped hole in my heart. I lost a lot of friends very quickly. And I also figured out who my real friends were very quickly. I just wanted to tell the pod squad that Sarah, you sent me your book scarred and

in that you wrote that one of your manifestations was to dance with Abby and me to Closer to Fine by the Indigo Girls. And I read that a few times and I just thought it was so beautiful and interesting that you chose that song to write in the book because that song, which we love so much, is about, you know, spending our lives looking for some kind of answer. Like we went to the doctor, we went to the mountain, we went to college, we're always looking for some set of rules, somebody that knows some solution or answer. And then finally discovering that there is none, that there is an answer.

And the answer is that there is no freaking answer and that you will never solve yourself and you will never solve other people and you will never solve the world, that there is no Oz behind the curtain and that there is a way to come a little bit closer to peace, which is finally being fine when we stop begging for something definitive. Like the actual repetitive line is the less I seek my source for some definitive. For some definitive. The closer. I am.

Just fine. Yeah. Seekers got to seek Sarah. It's so funny you break it up because I was in preparation for this. I did yoga and like took the morning. to myself and just like really wanted to get grounded. And I had that song playing. I was like, I'd never, I mean, I'd been playing that song for 20 plus years. I never thought of it that way. And I was playing it in my head in yoga. I was like, the closer I am to fine. That's what we're

just trying to be is fine. And not even. Just closer to it. Just closer to it. Yeah. Just closer. Finding that balance. That crazy. It's just trying to like, yeah. So I do appreciate that. Letting go of all the, all the memos. All the memos and all the, the, the memo we got that we have to find an answer and that it's right around the corner and somebody else has it. It's just us. Always the return to authority of self in life is what you say over and over again and Bonnie says, which is like remembering that I am the authority of my own life and not relinquishing that to any damn body. And that's where to answer your question about earlier, that's what my journey has been as my own inner belonging and then close to me, my family and as best

as I can in a not culty way, the community through the podcast of just people to, trying to heal and offer the tools that I've learned to other people leaving cults or avoiding cults or getting people out of cults. It's very meaningful to me and healthy, I think. Always questioning it. I think we should say, I think, at the end of everything, Sarah. That's what I do. We say strong opinions very loosely helped. You are such a badass, Sarah. Thank you for being with us. We love you, Sarah. Be in touch, Pod Squad. We will see you back next time. As you go through the week, just try to be a little bit closer to fine. See you next time. Bye. We Can Do Hard Things is produced in partnership with Cadence 13 Studios. Be sure to rate,

review, and follow the show on Apple Podcasts, Odyssey, or wherever you get your podcasts. Especially be sure to rate and review the podcast if you really liked it. If you didn't, don't worry about it. It's fine.