Speaker 1: I've got a very special episode to share with you today,
Speaker 1: and it's part of a series we're releasing called Something
Speaker 1: to Normalize. One of the reasons I've always loved the
Speaker 1: Wolf Parable is because it normalizes being human and having
Speaker 1: difficult emotions. These podcast episodes feature my partner Ginny, talking
Speaker 1: with her friend and previous guest of the show, Brandy Lust.
Speaker 1: In these unguarded conversations, they'll be sharing their lives and
Speaker 1: perspectives as women, alongside insights from experts, researchers, and writers
Speaker 1: on topics that are hard to talk about. We tend
Speaker 1: to keep these things to ourselves, though, and when we do,
Speaker 1: it can breed a sense of being the only one,
Speaker 1: feelings of shame, or evidence we're somehow doing life wrong.
Speaker 1: Brandy and Ginny hope that by giving voice to experiences, feelings,
Speaker 1: and thoughts we often keep to ourselves, we can create
Speaker 1: a community with less shame and a deeper sense of belonging.
Speaker 1: I am so happy to share their voices with you.
Speaker 1: I think you'll find these episodes a wonderfully nourishing and
Speaker 1: supportive addition to the regular scheduled one you feed podcast
Speaker 1: episodes you are used to hearing here and now I'm
Speaker 1: proud to present to you something to normalize.
Speaker 2: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, Welcome, friends, Welcome, Brandy, Welcome, Jinny.
Speaker 3: Welcome to all of us wherever we are in the world.
Speaker 2: And then the two of us here sitting and just
Speaker 2: being with one another. Welcome to something to normalize. My
Speaker 2: name is Ginny Gay, and I am a certified mindfulness teacher,
Speaker 2: and I help others come into presence, learn how to
Speaker 2: be with whatever's arising, to ground themselves in this presence
Speaker 2: and as a result, and as a result of that practice,
Speaker 2: to experience less shame, less fear, and more joy and
Speaker 2: more ease and more well being.
Speaker 4: And I am Andy Lust and I'm a speaker, facilitator,
Speaker 4: and trainer who focuses on helping organizations to create safe
Speaker 4: spaces so that folks can share their truth and that
Speaker 4: truth can make change in their communities.
Speaker 2: Yes, and we have got some powerful truth to share today.
Speaker 2: It's largely based out of an experience you've had in
Speaker 2: your truth. And so, Brady, what are we normalizing today?
Speaker 4: We are normalizing the experience that folks may have in
Speaker 4: the wake of abuse of power and connecting with their
Speaker 4: own truth in the aftermath of that, which can be
Speaker 4: so disorienting and purposefully disorienting because of the systems and
Speaker 4: the folks who permit and also act out that abuse
Speaker 4: in their communities.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and maybe we should before diving into your experience,
Speaker 2: which I'm so grateful that you would like a share today,
Speaker 2: what are some examples of abuse of power? Where might
Speaker 2: we find ourselves experiencing that in life?
Speaker 4: For example, I think abuse of power occurs any time
Speaker 4: that a person uses their own privilege without considering the
Speaker 4: impacts to those that they are serving, or communicating with
Speaker 4: or collaborating with, and they do that with the intention
Speaker 4: to gain something.
Speaker 2: As an aside. Do you think that intention is like
Speaker 2: a conscious intention or may it be also like below
Speaker 2: the line of consciousness?
Speaker 4: I think it very oftentimes is below the line of consciousness.
Speaker 4: I think most people want to do good in the
Speaker 4: world and believe that they are doing good. And that's
Speaker 4: why one of the things that I say when I
Speaker 4: talk about this as a facilitator and speaker is that
Speaker 4: unacknowledged power is.
Speaker 3: The root of abuse.
Speaker 4: So we have to always be aware of the places
Speaker 4: where we hold power and how that might be impacting
Speaker 4: the folks around us, because those folks aren't always going
Speaker 4: to feel safe to share with us real feedback. And
Speaker 4: there's actually some really interesting research from Tasha Yerrich that
Speaker 4: talks about the fact that as we gain more power,
Speaker 4: we have less self awareness. And I think that's a
Speaker 4: major influencing factor in these situations.
Speaker 3: When you just said.
Speaker 2: That as a gain more power, we have less self awareness,
Speaker 2: that lands like, yeah, exactly, And isn't that an important
Speaker 2: dynamite to be aware of, right so to kind of
Speaker 2: not only see where that might exist outside of us,
Speaker 2: but also where do we have power that we might
Speaker 2: have some blind spots around and then with the intention
Speaker 2: of bringing some mindfulness to how we operate in the
Speaker 2: spaces where we have power. Right, absolutely, we're going to
Speaker 2: explore that today. I mean, you have a lot of
Speaker 2: expertise on this, both learned and also I mean unfortunately,
Speaker 2: like through your life experience. You want to dive into
Speaker 2: that life experience a bit.
Speaker 3: I do.
Speaker 4: And before we navigate into those deep dark waters, I
Speaker 4: want to acknowledge that this is a really challenging topic
Speaker 4: for some folks. And so if it's feeling unsafe for
Speaker 4: you right now to hear about abuse of power, and
Speaker 4: particularly in the context of predatory behavior and grooming. Then
Speaker 4: I would just encourage you to take care of yourself
Speaker 4: if you're planning to listen, and if that feels unsafe
Speaker 4: for any reason, maybe this is one that you want
Speaker 4: to skip. Yeah, I'm glad you named that, but we
Speaker 4: hope you stay with us because I feel that this
Speaker 4: will be an opportunity for folks to experience a sense
Speaker 4: of resonance if they've ever had something like this happen
Speaker 4: in really a sense of community, and that's why we
Speaker 4: want to bring this topic to the table. In the
Speaker 4: aftermath of having shared my own story in a variety
Speaker 4: of platforms already, I'll just say that I have been
Speaker 4: contacted by multiple women who have had similar situations, and
Speaker 4: really consistently the feedback has been thank you for sharing
Speaker 4: this experience, because it's so easy to have our self
Speaker 4: trust dismantled in the wake of abusive power, particularly when
Speaker 4: we then use our voice and folks aren't supportive of
Speaker 4: us in our communities.
Speaker 3: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's truth and power in knowing you're not alone.
Speaker 3: Absolutely.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah. So this most recent incident of this is
Speaker 2: not the first incident of this that you've experienced in
Speaker 2: your life, which is hard to think about because I
Speaker 2: know how painful the things that you've shared, you know
Speaker 2: with me have been. So where do you want to start?
Speaker 4: I think I want to begin by, as you were saying,
Speaker 4: naming that this is not my first rodeo.
Speaker 3: It's taken me a while to get to the.
Speaker 4: Point where I was able to speak truth to power
Speaker 4: in a way that instigated any kind of real change.
Speaker 4: And so to add a bit of hope to this conversation.
Speaker 4: At the beginning, there was change that came out of
Speaker 4: this situation for me, but it took a lot of
Speaker 4: practice to get there. I have experienced some form of
Speaker 4: abuse that I have reported since age twelve, and in
Speaker 4: the intervening years I have made attempts to report these
Speaker 4: abuses to folks who had the authority to make change
Speaker 4: over half a dozen times. So it's taken me this
Speaker 4: long to get to the point where I began to
Speaker 4: recognize the fact that I had to stop trying to
Speaker 4: stop the person who was perpetrating the abuse instead shift
Speaker 4: my gaze and my time and resources energy toward how
Speaker 4: can I make change in this system so that these
Speaker 4: folks who are perpetrating abuse are not able to continue
Speaker 4: to perpetrate, and then hopefully that folks in the future
Speaker 4: who are reporting are going to have better experiences than
Speaker 4: I had in the circumstance and every other that I've
Speaker 4: ever faced in my life. With that foundation, I can
Speaker 4: share a little bit about what happened to me if
Speaker 4: this feels like the right time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: I had been working with a spiritual teacher for the
Speaker 4: last eight and a half years. I'm a mindfulness practitioner,
Speaker 4: and I had wanted to find a supportive person who
Speaker 4: was able to help to guide me through that process,
Speaker 4: particularly in the aftermath of my grandma's death, who had
Speaker 4: been a spiritual teacher to me, and then her death
Speaker 4: had impacted me in such a way that it made
Speaker 4: it feel meaningful to try to continue on that journey
Speaker 4: with someone new. So I met my teacher through a
Speaker 4: church that I was a member of at the time,
Speaker 4: and the first couple of times that we met it
Speaker 4: was at the church through spiritual direction, and he is
Speaker 4: trained in a path called Diamond approach, and that approach
Speaker 4: is really very mindfulness based and very embodiment based, and
Speaker 4: it felt like a good fit at the time, and
Speaker 4: I felt that I could trust this person, and so
Speaker 4: I began meeting with him one on one in his
Speaker 4: home seven years ago or so at that point in
Speaker 4: our relationship, and after the pandemic, we started meeting in
Speaker 4: person again. And I came to his home after receiving
Speaker 4: a text that he was running from another appointment, and
Speaker 4: I felt a little disoriented from the moment that I arrived.
Speaker 4: There was just something about the urgency of his text
Speaker 4: or something that alerted me to the feeling that this
Speaker 4: was different than other meanings that I had had with him.
Speaker 4: And we were walking up the stairs to his office,
Speaker 4: so he was behind me, and I asked him how
Speaker 4: he was doing without facing him, and his response was bad.
Speaker 4: So I turned around, and as I was looking at
Speaker 4: his eyes, I felt that there was something different happening there,
Speaker 4: like a look in his eyes that I had never
Speaker 4: really seen before, and it seemed a little unhinged is
Speaker 4: maybe the word that I would use. So as I
Speaker 4: was looking at him and I said, what's going on,
Speaker 4: he turned around and said, I was hoping this session
Speaker 4: could be for me. This did not feel aligned with
Speaker 4: the type of relationship that we'd had in the past.
Speaker 4: I came to these sessions very much in a vulnerable place,
Speaker 4: and that vulnerabil he started before I ever walked foot
Speaker 4: in the door, and it was very disorienting to hear
Speaker 4: him say that, and immediately I wanted to escape, but
Speaker 4: he was standing behind me. It felt like there really
Speaker 4: wasn't an option but to keep going. And we walked
Speaker 4: into his office, and by this point I was feeling
Speaker 4: this intense shaking throughout my body, almost like I had
Speaker 4: been hit by a bolt of lightning in the top
Speaker 4: of my head.
Speaker 3: And we sat down and.
Speaker 4: He proceeded to use the session for him. In the
Speaker 4: course of the hour that I was there, which was
Speaker 4: the amount of time that we had scheduled, he shared
Speaker 4: with me that he had been fired from his ministerial
Speaker 4: role that morning because he'd had an affair with a
Speaker 4: married woman, which is outside of the scope of the
Speaker 4: ethics of his role, and he all also shared with
Speaker 4: me sexually explicit details of their relationship together. He also
Speaker 4: asked me to facilitate embodiment work for him, which included
Speaker 4: him kind of closing his eyes and going into his
Speaker 4: gut and sharing some really personal information about how he
Speaker 4: viewed hisself as a sexual being. And it was terrifying.
Speaker 4: As soon as I could, as soon as it felt
Speaker 4: appropriate for me to leave, we said goodbye, and I
Speaker 4: think this moment's really hard for me to recall because
Speaker 4: it was very much at odds with how I was
Speaker 4: feeling internally. But he said I love you to me,
Speaker 4: and I replied back to him, and I gave him
Speaker 4: a big hug, and then when I laughed, I just
Speaker 4: got in my car and thought, like, what just happened
Speaker 4: to me? And I really didn't have any context of
Speaker 4: understanding for what I'd been through beyond the fact that
Speaker 4: it was very scary, it felt wildly inappropriate, and my
Speaker 4: relationship with this person felt changed in a way that
Speaker 4: was very definitive and completely unexpected.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, from there.
Speaker 4: I would say I was able, through supportive relationships, to
Speaker 4: identify what had happened. And there's a key moment that
Speaker 4: I want to share, which is that I was speaking
Speaker 4: with someone who had experience with somatic work and someone
Speaker 4: that I trusted to hold space for me. We were
Speaker 4: talking through this incident and I had gotten to the
Speaker 4: point in the story where I shared that he'd revealed
Speaker 4: this sexually explicit content to me, and she said, well,
Speaker 4: that's the breach.
Speaker 3: And I said, I.
Speaker 4: Understand that that is the worst part of this, but
Speaker 4: why does it feel so bad? Why does it feel
Speaker 4: so devastating? And she said, I want to drop a
Speaker 4: word and see how it lands for you. And she
Speaker 4: said the word predatory. And it was a really strange
Speaker 4: combination of relief at having something that fit and also
Speaker 4: this knowing around it that was almost unbelievable at the
Speaker 4: same time. And so then she said, I'm going to
Speaker 4: drop another word for you. And the word that she
Speaker 4: dropped was grooming. And since that time, I've spent a
Speaker 4: lot of energy and resource really working to understand what
Speaker 4: that word means and how we can identify patterns of
Speaker 4: abuse before it becomes sexual assault or coercion or something
Speaker 4: even worse than what I did experience. And that's been
Speaker 4: very helpful for me and being able to stand in
Speaker 4: my own truth and have language for what happened.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you called me not too long after that conversation. Yeah,
Speaker 2: I remember exactly where I was, Like, I can remember
Speaker 2: everything about my experience of that conversation, and the way
Speaker 2: I remember it is when you described what happened, immediate
Speaker 2: inner alarm bells went off for me too, like the
Speaker 2: minute this really inappropriate sexual content, well really the minute
Speaker 2: that you shared like that, he said, I was hoping
Speaker 2: this session could be for me, you know, like you
Speaker 2: in the moment that had this inner knowing of like
Speaker 2: uh oh, like something's not right. And then again with
Speaker 2: the material that he went on to share further, alarm
Speaker 2: bells went off, and you then said, you know, in
Speaker 2: a friend of mine mentioned a word to me, And
Speaker 2: the way I remember it is that you said the
Speaker 2: word as I have said the word, which was predatory.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
Speaker 2: I mean, your memory can be a slippery thing, but
Speaker 2: like that's how I remember it. I remember saying that
Speaker 2: word almost simultaneously, like a knowing like yeah, yeah, that's
Speaker 2: what comes to me too. And grooming And as you're talking,
Speaker 2: I'm remembering an instance that feels similar to me, which
Speaker 2: I'll be happy to share, but I don't want to
Speaker 2: interrupt your story at this point to do that, but
Speaker 2: I just want to share that, like there was a
Speaker 2: confirmation when you shared with me what you were going through.
Speaker 2: I had inner alarm bells that went off too, and
Speaker 2: they were just in rhythm with yours, you know, they
Speaker 2: were absolutely there. And I was so grateful that you
Speaker 2: felt safe to call and share that with me.
Speaker 4: And I felt like I needed to call and we
Speaker 4: talked about this. You had asked me if I felt
Speaker 4: that it might be supportive to work with you, and
Speaker 4: I had said.
Speaker 2: Yes, yes, Okay. That's a good thing to mention at
Speaker 2: this point is that I had also come in not
Speaker 2: too long ago and said, like, I feel like the
Speaker 2: work you're doing with this embodied somatic mindfulness work, I'd
Speaker 2: really like to dive in. And so yes, I had
Speaker 2: also been meeting with him for probably a few months
Speaker 2: at this point, I would say, And so I didn't
Speaker 2: know him as well as you, but I certainly did
Speaker 2: know him, and I knew about that work. And the
Speaker 2: other interesting thing is, you know, i'd become a certified
Speaker 2: mindfulness teacher, and so I had recently, somewhat recently just
Speaker 2: taken that seat, the teacher's seat, and had really learned
Speaker 2: in a new way how sacred that teacher student relationship felt,
Speaker 2: and was like I had a deep knowing that that
Speaker 2: was sacred, and that honoring the role of teacher and
Speaker 2: student and maintaining that safe space in those roles felt
Speaker 2: like to me the most important thing in the world
Speaker 2: as a teacher, like I couldn't imagine as a teacher
Speaker 2: asking my student to do work for me. So that
Speaker 2: also kind of made I guess our friendship a good place,
Speaker 2: in a safe place for you to lean into.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And in some ways it made it confusing, Oh
Speaker 4: tell me more, because I felt a little responsible for
Speaker 4: OH recommending Yes. I felt this person would be someone
Speaker 4: who might be supportive for you. And also, it was
Speaker 4: so soon after this happened that I was still really
Speaker 4: in discernment about what happened. It took me a minute
Speaker 4: to feel like I should share this with you.
Speaker 3: I went from should I share this with you? To
Speaker 3: I have to share this with you.
Speaker 4: But I had to make that cognitive shift because I
Speaker 4: think that speaks to the authority that can be in
Speaker 4: the student teacher relationship. And I think that teachers who
Speaker 4: engage in this kind of behavior depend upon that questioning
Speaker 4: and depend upon that authority to know that. It's less
Speaker 4: likely that people will speak up when they've cross bound
Speaker 4: because it feels like a betrayal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm really glad you named that. That makes a lot
Speaker 2: of sense, and I'm really glad that you leaned into
Speaker 2: our friendship at that moment. So what happens next?
Speaker 4: I discerned, I would say, pretty quickly within a week
Speaker 4: or so, that I wanted to do whatever I could
Speaker 4: to keep people safe from this person. So I ended
Speaker 4: up reaching out to the Diamond Approach, the church that
Speaker 4: I had met this person, and then shortly thereafter I
Speaker 4: met with the church, I was encouraged to also meet
Speaker 4: with the denomination that he was ordained within, and that
Speaker 4: started a very long process of me filing a complaint
Speaker 4: with two organizations and then working with this third organization
Speaker 4: of the church where I met him to try to
Speaker 4: keep people safe.
Speaker 3: And I realized.
Speaker 4: Pretty quickly that because he was so integrated in so
Speaker 4: many different communities, that it would require a pretty radical
Speaker 4: action from me to ensure that the folks who needed
Speaker 4: this information were able to have it. After I met
Speaker 4: with the head minister, and after I had met with
Speaker 4: the denomination and realized that really I felt most responsible
Speaker 4: for warning the folks that were closest to him, I
Speaker 4: ended up sending my complaint to forty or so people
Speaker 4: who were part of Diamond Approach and then also part
Speaker 4: of the church, and the minister and I were already
Speaker 4: in conversation around how he wanted to present this information
Speaker 4: to the community, and I think that my sending that
Speaker 4: report instigated his response to come more quickly. He ended
Speaker 4: up getting some questions, of course, from parishioners who wanted
Speaker 4: to know what the situation was about. Within twenty four hours,
Speaker 4: he sent an email to the congregation and I don't
Speaker 4: remember the title, but it was, oh, I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: I do remember the title.
Speaker 4: It was a word from Glenn, and the content of
Speaker 4: the email is quite long, and most of it was
Speaker 4: about thanksgiving and being grateful and praise of God for
Speaker 4: the goodness in the world, and tact. Right onto the
Speaker 4: very end of it was two quite short paragraphs about
Speaker 4: the fact that someone had reported an incident to them
Speaker 4: and had been encouraged to report it to the Methodist office,
Speaker 4: and that I was under pastoral care, and that was
Speaker 4: sort of the summary of the situation. What he and
Speaker 4: I had spoken about before this was that I wanted
Speaker 4: him to share any information that I gave him in
Speaker 4: any way that he deemed appropriate to keep other people safe.
Speaker 4: And that was something I had to submit in writing
Speaker 4: for his lawyer in order for him to feel comfortable
Speaker 4: to do that, and my response to his communication to
Speaker 4: the church was that it was insufficient and inappropriate because
Speaker 4: the title did not reflect the content. The content of
Speaker 4: the email was deeply at odds with the message that
Speaker 4: it contained, and you know, it was buried in the
Speaker 4: end of a long email, and I wasn't sure if
Speaker 4: people would see it. So I asked him if he
Speaker 4: would be willing to meet with me about this, and
Speaker 4: then I didn't hear anything back from him beyond him
Speaker 4: sharing that he wanted to get more information from the
Speaker 4: denomination first and hear how they were going to handle this.
Speaker 4: I didn't hear anything back from him for a long time.
Speaker 4: It was actually three months.
Speaker 2: I know you and I were in some conversation around
Speaker 2: what was going on as you received the email and
Speaker 2: use you were communicating with him and in communication with
Speaker 2: the Diamond Approach leadership. Did you have people that you
Speaker 2: were waiting in those waters of discernment with to get
Speaker 2: clear on what action you wanted to take If you
Speaker 2: wanted to take action each.
Speaker 3: Step of the way I did.
Speaker 4: You were part of that community, of course, and I
Speaker 4: ended up also forming a community that would go through
Speaker 4: actively go through this process with me. So in the
Speaker 4: three months between when I gave him the feedback and
Speaker 4: when we actually met, because it was actually three months
Speaker 4: in that window, I was meeting with my therapist and
Speaker 4: I ended up going on a trip to the beach
Speaker 4: that instigated me actually taking a break from this situation,
Speaker 4: which she encouraged and said, listen, if you're feeling okay
Speaker 4: right now, like capitalize on that feeling and then you'll
Speaker 4: move forward when you're ready. And what instigated the change
Speaker 4: back to me re engaging and really forcing this person
Speaker 4: to continue in the process with me was that I
Speaker 4: was attending an event and it was completely unrelated to
Speaker 4: the church. It was completely unrelated to Diamond Approach. I
Speaker 4: was just there really scouting out speakers for an organization
Speaker 4: that I'm a part of. And I saw a group
Speaker 4: member at this event, a Diamond Approach group member, and
Speaker 4: this was a person who had received a copy of
Speaker 4: the complaint. And I saw them see me like look
Speaker 4: quickly and then look away, So I knew that they
Speaker 4: knew who I was. And I was with a professional
Speaker 4: colleague who's also a friend, and I had to very
Speaker 4: quickly say to her, like, something strange is about to happen.
Speaker 3: Here's a very quick gist of this situation.
Speaker 4: And I'm going to stand here and wait for this
Speaker 4: person to walk by again because I need to say
Speaker 4: something to them.
Speaker 3: And he did walk by again, and.
Speaker 4: I got in their eyeline and said, hey, you know,
Speaker 4: I know you. And at first he, you know, seemed
Speaker 4: a little confused, and so I named where I knew
Speaker 4: him from and he said something along the lines of oh, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's really bad that that had to end.
Speaker 3: And I said, was it? I was the reason that
Speaker 3: it ended.
Speaker 2: And you say that it ended, like what ended the.
Speaker 3: Diamond Approach group that we were in.
Speaker 4: Okay, Yeah, So the Diamond Approach group was through the
Speaker 4: church and so it had to end because the minister
Speaker 4: had put it to an end. And this person was
Speaker 4: sharing that they were unhappy with the ending of the group, okay,
Speaker 4: and I said it ended because of me, And he said, oh,
Speaker 4: you were that person, and I said, yeah, I sent
Speaker 4: my complaint to you and no one reached out and
Speaker 4: that was very hurtful. And then he proceeded to, in
Speaker 4: a very uncomfortable lay, share that he had kept contact
Speaker 4: with this teacher, that he was still supporting this teacher
Speaker 4: and it was deeply uncomfortable for him. I think so
Speaker 4: often folks don't know what to say when someone approaches
Speaker 4: them with an uncomfortable situation. And he revealed a lot
Speaker 4: to me in that conversation that maybe he, upon further reflection,
Speaker 4: wouldn't have revealed. But when we walked out of the building,
Speaker 4: my friend and I after this interaction had occurred, first
Speaker 4: of all, I was absolutely devastated. I mean again, my
Speaker 4: whole body was shaking. I was very upset, and I
Speaker 4: just said, I cannot disappear. I cannot make myself smaller
Speaker 4: and insignificant because these people prefer that I didn't exist.
Speaker 2: Is that part of why you were Like, I'm going
Speaker 2: to stand here and when this person walks by again,
Speaker 2: they will see me.
Speaker 3: Absolutely that was the thought behind it. I thought, I'm
Speaker 3: not invisible.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you can't pretend I'm not here, Like, you have
Speaker 4: to acknowledge your part in this, because you did not
Speaker 4: reach out when this happened. And even further, once I
Speaker 4: learned in the conversation that they were still supportive of
Speaker 4: this teacher, like they had aligned themselves with the perpetrator
Speaker 4: as opposed to the victim. Even knowing the specific details,
Speaker 4: of what had happened to me. It did two things
Speaker 4: that conversation. One of them is that it dropped me
Speaker 4: back into a full blown trauma response that lasted forty
Speaker 4: eight hours, where I was just back at ground zero.
Speaker 4: It was like it happened yesterday. And the second thing
Speaker 4: that it did was reignited my passion for making sure
Speaker 4: that I didn't lose integrity. And by integrity I mean wholeness,
Speaker 4: like a feeling of being a whole person. That I
Speaker 4: didn't lose integrity in this process. For me, what that
Speaker 4: meant in this moment was that I needed to be seen,
Speaker 4: I needed to be heard, and that became really paramount
Speaker 4: to me moving forward.
Speaker 3: Is that feeling of no, I'm a human.
Speaker 4: You cannot pretend that I am not here and that
Speaker 4: I do not exist and just move on as if
Speaker 4: nothing has happened. Yeah, so that's when to go back
Speaker 4: to your question about community. I did have these supportive
Speaker 4: discernment partners that sometimes arose, you know, just this person
Speaker 4: who happened to be there when this interaction happened, but
Speaker 4: then also friends who were able to hear what I
Speaker 4: was saying and just listen so much like I needed
Speaker 4: people to listen to me, because when you're feeling unheard,
Speaker 4: like you kind of have to keep saying things over
Speaker 4: and over again because you're just trying to get that
Speaker 4: feeling of like someone understands me. So that support was
Speaker 4: incredibly helpful for my own mental health insanity.
Speaker 3: And then when I.
Speaker 4: Decided to re engage the process, I did reach back
Speaker 4: out to that minister, and that was the front that
Speaker 4: mattered most out of the three, because this is the
Speaker 4: community where this teacher gathered students, so many people knew him.
Speaker 4: He'd been there for twenty four years, and I felt
Speaker 4: that folks really needed to know because I knew that
Speaker 4: they were going to want to still feel like he
Speaker 4: was a safe person. And when I sent the email
Speaker 4: to the minister, and this is probably about at least
Speaker 4: two months past, when I had requested the initial meeting
Speaker 4: to provide feedback on the email that he sent to
Speaker 4: the community, and his response was, well, I'm still waiting
Speaker 4: on the denomination to figure out what's happening there. So
Speaker 4: I copied and pasted his email to me and sent
Speaker 4: it to the denomination and said, I'm not sure why
Speaker 4: this person feels like they need to know where you
Speaker 4: are in the process for me to provide feedback to
Speaker 4: him on his own process, but he seems to need that,
Speaker 4: so can you please send him whatever it is that
Speaker 4: he needs to move forward. Hours later, I got an
Speaker 4: email back from him saying he'd prayed on it and
Speaker 4: agreed to meet with me.
Speaker 2: Magical, amazing, magical God's Talking Grace interview and within hours
Speaker 2: because yeah, yeah, And when he agreed to meet with me,
Speaker 2: I did this thing that I had tried to do
Speaker 2: in the past and it had never really worked.
Speaker 4: Out, and that is I sought allyship to move through
Speaker 4: the process with me. And one of the people that
Speaker 4: I reached out to was a woman named Connie, who
Speaker 4: was a member of the church and one of the
Speaker 4: only church members who received the complaint that I sent out.
Speaker 4: And reached back out and said, I am so sorry
Speaker 4: that this happened to you, and thank you for sharing
Speaker 4: this and I believe you and what can I do?
Speaker 4: And I had met with them one other time for dinner,
Speaker 4: and then said I kind of need a break. So
Speaker 4: I reached back out to this person, to Connie, and
Speaker 4: asked her if she would be willing to attend to
Speaker 4: the meeting with me and she said that she would,
Speaker 4: and then I also reached out to my friend law Baker.
Speaker 4: I'm on a committee with her, and she has experienced
Speaker 4: as a professional DII expert, and I felt she would
Speaker 4: just bring another angle and d means diversity, equity and inclusion.
Speaker 4: Got it, and so I asked her to come along
Speaker 4: to the meeting as well. And then as the process continued,
Speaker 4: I also included my friend to autumn as sort of
Speaker 4: a record keeper to note everything that happened in the
Speaker 4: meetings and hold all of us accountable.
Speaker 3: So I added those two folks to the meeting.
Speaker 4: It took us another at least couple of weeks to
Speaker 4: actually get it on the calendar, and in the intervening time,
Speaker 4: what I did was I began collecting all of the
Speaker 4: information that I had up to this point in the process,
Speaker 4: including the ways that I had given full opportunities for
Speaker 4: this minister to share any information that he felt was appropriate,
Speaker 4: the ways that I had already communicated to him that
Speaker 4: I didn't feel his response was appropriate, the times that
Speaker 4: he refused to meet with me, and then also further
Speaker 4: information that I had gathered up to that point about
Speaker 4: what this teacher had been up to in the intervening process,
Speaker 4: which was a lot of reaching out to parishioners and
Speaker 4: garnering support and sharing things that felt very out of
Speaker 4: scope for the fact that he'd just been fired, including
Speaker 4: sermons that he'd rewritten to reflect what had happened to him,
Speaker 4: and then sending out to parishioners and taking no responsibility
Speaker 4: for the impacts that this had had on other people.
Speaker 4: It was very narcissistic some of these communications. When we
Speaker 4: went into the meeting, I had my clipboard, I had
Speaker 4: my full list of everything that had happened, and we
Speaker 4: sent that to them five minutes before the meeting, and
Speaker 4: Law and I sat down in a coffee shop beforehand
Speaker 4: and did some grounding practices that were really supportive for
Speaker 4: me and helped me to connect with that part of
Speaker 4: myself that was strong and powerful. And then you know,
Speaker 4: from there things very much changed. We held their feet
Speaker 4: to the fire, and I said, at some point in
Speaker 4: the meeting, do you understand and that if you don't act,
Speaker 4: that you are culpable for any harm that any woman
Speaker 4: might face at the hands of this teacher.
Speaker 3: Do you understand that?
Speaker 4: And I just sat in silence and looked at each
Speaker 4: of them and named them and then they just said yes.
Speaker 4: They said very little during the meeting. I think that
Speaker 4: they were taken aback by the preparation that I had done.
Speaker 4: I think they were taken aback by the authority that
Speaker 4: I exerted in the situation. And all of that came
Speaker 4: with just a lot of practice and then knowing that.
Speaker 3: This was the presence that.
Speaker 4: I needed to bring in order to exert that sense
Speaker 4: of urgency that the situation required, because there had been
Speaker 4: such a lack of urgency in the situation. And so
Speaker 4: a really beautiful moment from this was walking out of
Speaker 4: that room with these two women and in agreement from
Speaker 4: this person that he would meet with us again, and
Speaker 4: having them reflect back to me what they saw.
Speaker 2: That witnessing that was really really powerful. Yeah, having that
Speaker 2: witness and being able to yes, I bet, I bet.
Speaker 4: Because in every other scenario I had left those meetings traumatized,
Speaker 4: and to have had these folks standing with me and saying, you.
Speaker 3: Are a fucking badass. How did you do that?
Speaker 4: Like there was so much silence, like how did you
Speaker 4: all that? To sit there and let them sit in
Speaker 4: this discomfort, and for me to have someone witness me
Speaker 4: in this incredibly vulnerable moment and reflect back to.
Speaker 3: Me how I was.
Speaker 4: What a gift I just cannot even begin to describe,
Speaker 4: because it.
Speaker 3: Allowed me to know who I was. Yes, that was
Speaker 3: the person that I was.
Speaker 4: I was also the incredibly terrified, scared person who had
Speaker 4: been through something horrible, and I was the person who,
Speaker 4: in the midst of that fear, could go go into
Speaker 4: that room and hold them accountable, hold them in that
Speaker 4: space of I have been uncomfortable for the last three months.
Speaker 3: It's your turn.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's your turn to feel the discomfort of the situation.
Speaker 3: Yes, just as a pause.
Speaker 2: I had a conversation the other day with a woman
Speaker 2: who was talking about a conversation she had. In this case,
Speaker 2: it was also another man, and there were so many
Speaker 2: moments of uncomfortable silence that she intentionally allowed to exist
Speaker 2: and not take it upon herself to resolve and make
Speaker 2: comfortable again by speaking and saying something, but like just
Speaker 2: letting that hang there and letting the responsibility of you know,
Speaker 2: the next word or just that moment be held by
Speaker 2: others than her.
Speaker 4: Well, women are trained to make other people feel comfortable.
Speaker 2: I feel that I certainly can agree with that.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: My experience would align. Yep.
Speaker 4: And so when you're holding a space that is intentionally uncomfortable,
Speaker 4: giving folks the opportunity to move out of the seriousness
Speaker 4: of the moment, but holding them in that moment, yeah,
Speaker 4: and allowing their authentic response to arise. To me, that's
Speaker 4: a gift to the other person because they're getting to
Speaker 4: see themselves and they may not be happy with what
Speaker 4: they see and experience in that moment, but they have
Speaker 4: to carry that with them moving forward.
Speaker 2: I think that's so powerful, Brady.
Speaker 3: It is a gift.
Speaker 2: I mean because discomfort perhaps the unfortunate truth of the universe.
Speaker 2: That discomfort is the ground from which growth change, those
Speaker 2: things are born, you know. And so if that is
Speaker 2: to happen, that discomfort also must happen, right, So to
Speaker 2: remove that discomfort removes that opportunity.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, these situations have taught me that, yeah, over the
Speaker 4: last few months, because I think I spent my career
Speaker 4: creating spaces where people felt really, really safe, supported, and
Speaker 4: that is also a gift to people, and that's not
Speaker 4: always what people need. In these situations where there is
Speaker 4: a power and balance and we're speaking truth to the
Speaker 4: need for change, folks, have to feel that discomfort, and
Speaker 4: that's an experience of common humanity in that moment, because
Speaker 4: the person bringing the truth to the table did a
Speaker 4: lot of very very hard work to get there.
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Speaker 2: I will say it was my honor to support you
Speaker 2: as I could and also witness you through this whole process.
Speaker 2: My heart was continually broken for the pain that you
Speaker 2: were going through as a result of this, and I
Speaker 2: was continually in awe of your how shall I say it,
Speaker 2: The way that you move through discernment and then stood
Speaker 2: in your truth at different points. That was some real
Speaker 2: strength and real bravery that I know is hard fought
Speaker 2: for through your life, through these other experiences, but it
Speaker 2: was It was a real honor to get to watch that,
Speaker 2: because you really inspired me to connect with and respect
Speaker 2: my own voice in moments when it's unclear to me
Speaker 2: what's happening inside of me, or maybe it's clear, but
Speaker 2: I'm somehow dismissing it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Yeah, I think we want to not believe when
Speaker 4: those feelings arise. Sure, when the terror arises that a
Speaker 4: situation we felt is safe no longer, it would be
Speaker 4: easier to disbelieve it. And so it's it's the hard
Speaker 4: thing sometimes to own and say, wow, no, this really
Speaker 4: happened to me, and that truth and that knowing and
Speaker 4: owning it and allowing it to be as big as
Speaker 4: it wanted to be. That's a lesson that I gained
Speaker 4: from this that I will take into every situation thereafter,
Speaker 4: because without it, I don't know what would have happened
Speaker 4: to me, Yeah, and moving into what actually happened what
Speaker 4: was the result of this, My therapist noted that something
Speaker 4: I've started to do since the conclusion of this situation.
Speaker 3: Is clearing things out.
Speaker 4: And then I had just said to her, like, I
Speaker 4: just have this urg to make things beautiful, and I
Speaker 4: think that in this situation, that's what truth telling is. Like,
Speaker 4: what I held inside of myself what allowed me to
Speaker 4: keep moving forward was actually not anger. It was actually
Speaker 4: not a desire for revenge.
Speaker 3: It was the.
Speaker 4: Gulf of grief between what I know beloved community to
Speaker 4: be in my heart and the possibility of it that
Speaker 4: I've never seen in my lifetime. The gulf between that
Speaker 4: and how I saw people behaving toward me and the world.
Speaker 4: That grief and that desire to see that come to fruition,
Speaker 4: that's what moved me forward, and that's where the beauty
Speaker 4: ultimately was in the situation. When we had that meeting
Speaker 4: with the church, we ultimately followed that up with another
Speaker 4: meaning a draft of a communication that they wanted to
Speaker 4: send to the community in response to our conversation, and
Speaker 4: then another lengthy negotiation about what that communication should include.
Speaker 4: We offered very minor changes a couple of sentences, and
Speaker 4: then wanted a title that reflected the content and the message,
Speaker 4: and they had problems with words like concerning warning, apology,
Speaker 4: and just wanted it to say update about this person.
Speaker 4: And so we came to a compromise on a few
Speaker 4: of those things. But literally down to the day that
Speaker 4: this got sent out, we did not know if it
Speaker 4: was going out. That day, law actually took over communicating
Speaker 4: because I'm texting them and saying like I'm losing it here.
Speaker 4: I cannot go another day in this process, and she said,
Speaker 4: let me take this from you, and sent a threatening
Speaker 4: email to them that basically said, we will take this
Speaker 4: back into our own hands if you do not clearly
Speaker 4: communicate to us. Do you understand that this is still
Speaker 4: traumatizing for her? A few minutes later, they said were
Speaker 4: sending this out it too.
Speaker 3: So this was at twelve thirty.
Speaker 4: We were still unsure whether this communication was going to
Speaker 4: go out, and then it did, and what it said
Speaker 4: to the community was that they apologized to me for
Speaker 4: what had happened. They apologized to the church and anyone
Speaker 4: else hurt by It said that they were going to
Speaker 4: offer a series of training experiences for parishioners and clergy
Speaker 4: around abuse of power in the church and what to
Speaker 4: do in those situations. It said that if folks felt
Speaker 4: uncomfortable because this person had reached out to them, to
Speaker 4: let them know.
Speaker 3: And it also.
Speaker 4: Had a little paragraph that I had written and that
Speaker 4: they had agreed to include, which was that I had
Speaker 4: agreed to forego anonymity in solidarity with all people whose
Speaker 4: voices were not heard because they didn't feel safe or
Speaker 4: they didn't have the resource to share their experiences. And
Speaker 4: it felt empowering to have my name listed. I completely
Speaker 4: understand the reasons that people need anonymity. I was very
Speaker 4: privileged in this situation to be speaking to a community where, yes,
Speaker 4: the email went out to four thousand people, and I
Speaker 4: can't choose to be a member of this church or
Speaker 4: not be a member of this church. I can choose
Speaker 4: to go to a church service or not go to
Speaker 4: a church service. Those are decisions I get to make,
Speaker 4: and so opting out is something that I'm able to do,
Speaker 4: and I think that as a position of privilege. I
Speaker 4: think that many people need anonymity because they have to
Speaker 4: keep being in those situations with folks, and I can
Speaker 4: tell you. I can't imagine how difficult that would be,
Speaker 4: because when that email went out to four thousand people,
Speaker 4: I could have heard a pin drop. Not one of
Speaker 4: them reached out to me and said thank you or
Speaker 4: I'm sorry that this happened. I didn't hear from any
Speaker 4: church member until after I posted this on all of
Speaker 4: my social media. I think there were a few people
Speaker 4: who said were members of the church and were so
Speaker 4: sorry this.
Speaker 3: Happened to you.
Speaker 4: Most of the support that I got was from the
Speaker 4: community outside of this situation, and that would be folks
Speaker 4: that I know personally who are not church members, folks
Speaker 4: who know me as a community member, and other spaces.
Speaker 4: And I was so so grateful to have that support
Speaker 4: because it was one of the hardest things that I've
Speaker 4: ever done in my life, and without that, it would
Speaker 4: have been like it never happened for me. That's how
Speaker 4: it would have felt. And having the validation like, yes,
Speaker 4: this happened to you, you know, thank you for trying
Speaker 4: to keep people safe, and I'm so sorry that you
Speaker 4: had to go through this. Like hearing that from people
Speaker 4: felt supportive isn't even the word. It felt validating. It
Speaker 4: felt like an acknowledgment of just my human experience.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean it's impossible to overstate the power of community,
Speaker 2: and I mean community to just to sort of describe.
Speaker 2: I mean, the word community can describe a few people
Speaker 2: you and a couple other people you know, or an
Speaker 2: army a legion of people. I mean, community is not
Speaker 2: to be sort of intimidated. You can build a community
Speaker 2: around yourself with a trusted friend.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's necessary for folks who have been through these
Speaker 4: types of abuse of power. Without it, it's an entirely
Speaker 4: alienating experience that can disconnect you from your own sense
Speaker 4: of self trust. And yes, my story in sharing this
Speaker 4: with folks in the beginning was that I did receive
Speaker 4: unsupportive language from even the best of intention to people
Speaker 4: where it was about me really making sure that I
Speaker 4: knew what I was doing because this could quote unquote,
Speaker 4: I mean, no one ever said this to me, but
Speaker 4: this is an undertone. This could destroy this man's life,
Speaker 4: and that's what we value above women's safety, men's reputations.
Speaker 4: And that pervasive feeling was so consistent and so many
Speaker 4: conversations that I had as just the undertone of that
Speaker 4: conversation is well, woll well, what are you doing?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 4: And what I needed in those moments was someone to
Speaker 4: say I hear you, I believe you. I don't know
Speaker 4: what you want to do about this, and there's no
Speaker 4: right thing. I'll be with you and whatever you decide
Speaker 4: to do with this situation.
Speaker 2: Those are the words.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: And in this situation it was you who identifies as
Speaker 2: a female and a man who identifies as a male.
Speaker 2: But I mean, this abuse of power is certainly not
Speaker 2: tied to any particular gender.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like you said, when you have the power of
Speaker 2: the privilege and are not either what you are aware
Speaker 2: and are doing it maliciously or are not aware, right,
Speaker 2: that can happen. I don't want to cut your story short,
Speaker 2: so let me know what more is important for you
Speaker 2: to say on this. But I also want to tell
Speaker 2: you about something that happened to me that might contrast
Speaker 2: a bit in terms of what it looks like without
Speaker 2: a community.
Speaker 4: I would love to hear that, and I feel complete
Speaker 4: in my okay, in my retelling, So please.
Speaker 2: Okay, and thank you for sharing all of that. So
Speaker 2: when I was just starting out in corporate America out
Speaker 2: of college, I was fortunate to have some success pretty
Speaker 2: early on in the job that I was in, which
Speaker 2: then led to a couple of promotions, and at the
Speaker 2: very young age of like my very early twenties, I
Speaker 2: found myself in a position where I had a lot
Speaker 2: of responsibility and was the only one in a job
Speaker 2: that had previously been three to four people strong. So
Speaker 2: it was just me and then the person I reported
Speaker 2: to the head of the department. It was a heat
Speaker 2: and it was just me and him. So the idea
Speaker 2: of grooming is in hindsight alive and well here, because
Speaker 2: this became very quickly a relationship where this person had
Speaker 2: complete power over me and my career, which at that
Speaker 2: point in my life was so important to me. It
Speaker 2: was so important to me for me to be able
Speaker 2: to like ascend through the ranks of you know, this job,
Speaker 2: this company, this industry into and higher leadership roles. That
Speaker 2: was important to me. And so this person really had
Speaker 2: a lot of power in my life at that point
Speaker 2: because his approval and review of my job and recommendation
Speaker 2: would either block or facilitate my next job, which the
Speaker 2: role I was in, I should say, was a bit
Speaker 2: of a eighteen month by nature kind of role, and
Speaker 2: then would feed into the next leadership position. And this
Speaker 2: person was a very like friendly, genial kind of guy,
Speaker 2: jokes around a lot, and so you know, we had
Speaker 2: an easy rapport from the get go. And then very
Speaker 2: quickly that easy report led into a sense of ea
Speaker 2: in the relationship where you know, comments could be made
Speaker 2: or even off color jokes could be made by this person,
Speaker 2: but it was done in like, oh, but you know
Speaker 2: you and I like we understand it.
Speaker 3: Like it's cool.
Speaker 2: It's almost like it was a privilege to have this
Speaker 2: kind of relationship with him where he could be so candid,
Speaker 2: like like I had somehow, you know, really won the
Speaker 2: special spot. I was really performing in my job to
Speaker 2: know that my boss felt was comfortable with me. Well,
Speaker 2: then it really evolved into incredibly offensive, like sexual in
Speaker 2: nature jokes, like when I'm starting to be like okay,
Speaker 2: Like I was not comfortable with it, but I definitely
Speaker 2: had no idea how to stop it. And I felt
Speaker 2: that if I did stop it, I would offend him.
Speaker 2: And if I offended him, then that was going to
Speaker 2: be the dagger in my own back.
Speaker 3: Like I just felt very trapped.
Speaker 2: So then it went on too. Then he started sending
Speaker 2: me pornographic images and again I did not know.
Speaker 3: How to stop it.
Speaker 2: I just felt like it was a incumbent upon me,
Speaker 2: like it was the most important thing to somehow keep
Speaker 2: this from going any further and not offend. And then
Speaker 2: you know, the next evolution of that was we were
Speaker 2: in his office one day and he tried to kiss me,
Speaker 2: and I was just like, again, oh god, shit, like
Speaker 2: it's continuing on and I don't know how to stop it.
Speaker 2: So I just tried to then start avoiding being alone
Speaker 2: with him in any way. I couldn't tell anyone because
Speaker 2: I secretly felt that I had done something to welcome this,
Speaker 2: like I had somehow sent him the message that this
Speaker 2: was okay, and I at that age and stage in
Speaker 2: my life, just did not know how to say no,
Speaker 2: Like I didn't know how to say stop. So I
Speaker 2: was alone and isolated, feeling like somehow it was my fault,
Speaker 2: and also feeling like it was my responsibility to make
Speaker 2: sure that like I somehow got out of this role
Speaker 2: into the next job. You know, that I still had
Speaker 2: to make that happen. And so fortunately there was a
Speaker 2: woman who was in a hiring position for the next
Speaker 2: leadership job that the one I wasn't currently in kind
Speaker 2: of fed into and I connected strongly professionally on capabilities
Speaker 2: and strengths, and she basically fought for me and pulled
Speaker 2: me right out of that job and into the next
Speaker 2: one working for her. And thank god, because that relationship
Speaker 2: with him continued to just devolve. I mean, I was
Speaker 2: not giving him what he wanted, which was a more
Speaker 2: than professional relationship, and he just turned completely resembleful and
Speaker 2: he did want to destroy me. He started talking bad
Speaker 2: about me to other people. I mean, it was going
Speaker 2: in the direction I feared, and so she pulled me
Speaker 2: out of it. Now I didn't tell anybody for the
Speaker 2: longest time, right Like, I still felt like somehow it
Speaker 2: was my fault. And I also felt like this was
Speaker 2: a person who had power in an organization, and I
Speaker 2: didn't know that I would be met with people who
Speaker 2: I don't know didn't want to then run and say,
Speaker 2: guess what Jenny's saying about you to him. So I'll
Speaker 2: never forget that experience, And it's not the only experience,
Speaker 2: but it was one where the older me can look
Speaker 2: back and have so much compassion for the younger me
Speaker 2: and how hard that was and how normal it was
Speaker 2: to feel all the feelings I fell and without any community,
Speaker 2: how common it is to feel all of those feelings
Speaker 2: of like it's my fault, I don't I'm trapped, I
Speaker 2: don't know how to get out. I can't get out.
Speaker 2: I have to you know, there's all of these things.
Speaker 2: And as a side note, this person went on to
Speaker 2: them be fired from a job that was like a
Speaker 2: couple of companies later because he ended up not staying
Speaker 2: with the company we were at for inappropriate sexual relationships
Speaker 2: with subordinates. Yeah. I don't take delight in his ruin,
Speaker 2: and I also take comfort that I wasn't the only
Speaker 2: one in it. I don't think it was quote my fault,
Speaker 2: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, but I wish.
Speaker 2: That I had had the wherewithal to begin gathering a
Speaker 2: community of support to help me through that. I think
Speaker 2: that would have been a difference maker.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: And I think, like what you had said about communities
Speaker 4: of support and how different they can look, it is
Speaker 4: not the right answer for everyone to report, and for
Speaker 4: some people it's not even a possibility for economic reasons
Speaker 4: or psychological reasons, or whatever the case may be. I
Speaker 4: think what we can take from your experience is that, however,
Speaker 4: we choose to respond in those scenarios, Having someone who
Speaker 4: can look at us and just say, like, I believe you,
Speaker 4: I trust you, this happened and it's not okay, like
Speaker 4: that is paramount importance. I did get the opportunity to
Speaker 4: tell this story on another podcast that's already been released.
Speaker 3: It's on last podcast.
Speaker 4: Everything is Black and White or I'm sorry, everything is
Speaker 4: not black and white. And I have had a number
Speaker 4: of women reach out to me and just say something happened.
Speaker 4: And I'm so grateful to hear another woman talk about
Speaker 4: the fact that this happened to them. When you're sharing
Speaker 4: this story and when I'm sharing my story, I hope
Speaker 4: that that is what people can take away from this.
Speaker 4: It's not your fault. What happened was wrong. And then
Speaker 4: figure out who in your life can be that person
Speaker 4: for you who will say the things that you need
Speaker 4: to say, even if you have to tell them to
Speaker 4: say those things, like the person who loves you the
Speaker 4: most and would be able to do that, because not
Speaker 4: everyone is going to be able to do that, And
Speaker 4: you have to find the people who will the people
Speaker 4: who will say those things, the people who will support
Speaker 4: you no matter what. And then if you want to
Speaker 4: report if you can report, and that's something you feel
Speaker 4: inclined to do. Having other people and that process actually
Speaker 4: makes the change more likely to happen. That's what I
Speaker 4: experienced in the circumstance having law with me, that outside
Speaker 4: set of eyes, having Connie who is a member of
Speaker 4: the church and is saying, here's how.
Speaker 3: I feel about this.
Speaker 4: Those eyes mattered when you're just one person, like you
Speaker 4: were talking about you, you know, you were just one
Speaker 4: person with one other person, Like what a terrifying situation,
Speaker 4: Like who did you have to talk to? I'm so
Speaker 4: sorry that happened to you.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I just think back too, like the
Speaker 2: community I was in that company. It was a very
Speaker 2: like patriarchal kind of good old boy networking type place,
Speaker 2: and the community valued like I don't have any other
Speaker 2: way to say it than like those that sort of
Speaker 2: got in that they could like be cool and they
Speaker 2: were like, you know, they weren't the like nark. They
Speaker 2: weren't the like, you know, whistleblower like that would have
Speaker 2: been the ugh, that's the person like that will be
Speaker 2: labeled as the black sheep the rest of their career
Speaker 2: as like the tattle you know, don't let them in
Speaker 2: your group because they will just ruin it because they
Speaker 2: just can't be cool with things, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3: That was the community, and so like to go against that,
Speaker 3: I was like.
Speaker 2: Well, shit, I mean, not only do I want to
Speaker 2: continue in my career and into the next position, but
Speaker 2: like I felt like the entire industry I would be like,
Speaker 2: but I had a big, like scarlet letter on my
Speaker 2: chest kind of thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I've had conversations with other women who did
Speaker 4: not publicly share what they had been through for that
Speaker 4: reason because they felt they wouldn't have been supported within
Speaker 4: the industry.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and their careers would be thwarted.
Speaker 4: So I think that's a logical, reasonable fear to have
Speaker 4: that happens.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's sad and it's unfair and it's infuriating, and
Speaker 4: it happens, and so yeah, in each of these situations,
Speaker 4: women are weighing these inevitable consequences against standing in their
Speaker 4: own truth. And we should not have to make that choice.
Speaker 4: We should be celebrated for wanting to keep other people
Speaker 4: and our organizations and our communities safe.
Speaker 3: Yes, and we're not.
Speaker 4: And those women that I was able to bring alongside
Speaker 4: me in this experience did celebrate.
Speaker 2: That, Yes, and I think you're right, Like, who knows
Speaker 2: whether or not it would have been wise to like
Speaker 2: speak out at that time, right, But what would have
Speaker 2: felt strengthening and healing is to have another person that
Speaker 2: I could have talked to in the way that you're describing, right,
Speaker 2: Having that witness and knowing, like in a very real
Speaker 2: way that I was not alone would have felt incredibly powerful.
Speaker 2: So I think one of the hopes that we both
Speaker 2: have by sharing this episode is to offer that you're
Speaker 2: not alone message at least like virtually to this community
Speaker 2: of listeners if you have found yourself in a position
Speaker 2: as the victim of abuse of power in some way,
Speaker 2: shape or form, and to encourage you in however it
Speaker 2: feels possible to you to find someone at least that
Speaker 2: you can talk to in this way, right. I mean,
Speaker 2: I would like to sort of check in with you
Speaker 2: about that and say, like, what else would you hope
Speaker 2: this encouragement or the impact of this episode would be
Speaker 2: on those listening that can relate.
Speaker 4: First, I just want to affirm that you know, women
Speaker 4: who have been through this, there's no right way to
Speaker 4: move through this. There's no way to move through this. However,
Speaker 4: you can get through this. That's how you do it,
Speaker 4: you know, And there are other people out there who
Speaker 4: have had to walk the path you're walking right now.
Speaker 2: All right, So this is actually going to be another
Speaker 2: two part episode, right, We love those. We love those
Speaker 2: just taking on one topic for one episode that's apparently
Speaker 2: not us. So we're going to split this up and
Speaker 2: do a two parter again. So yeah, today's part one,
Speaker 2: and then next time we're going.
Speaker 4: To be moving from our specific stories and what happened
Speaker 4: to us to speaking more generally about grooming and predatory
Speaker 4: behavior as a topic and how this happens and help
Speaker 4: perpetrators end up being protected and victims voices end up
Speaker 4: being silenced in order to keep a status quo that's
Speaker 4: not supportive of everyone's well being. So we'll be talking
Speaker 4: about how grooming happens. We'll also be talking about learning
Speaker 4: to trust ourselves and to care for ourselves when we
Speaker 4: end up in these situations.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love that you said that they're at the end.
Speaker 2: That is key, And I feel like at this point
Speaker 2: in my life has been sort of my lifelong work,
Speaker 2: which is to know my own voice and trust my
Speaker 2: own voice.
Speaker 3: Yes, right, so more.
Speaker 2: On that next time. We deeply hope you'll join us
Speaker 2: for that conversation, and we feel so grateful that you
Speaker 2: joined us for this one. And I feel like these
Speaker 2: conversations with you, Brandy, they're just one of the great
Speaker 2: joys of my life right now.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 4: Thank you same, same all right, Thank you everyone. We
Speaker 4: appreciate you all so much.
Speaker 3: Good bye, bye bye.
Speaker 4: Sharing and learning about human experiences is what we love.
Speaker 4: You've heard some of ours, now we'd like to hear
Speaker 4: some of yours. Head to one feed dot net slash
Speaker 4: normalize to get in touch with us with comments, experiences
Speaker 4: of your own, or really anything you like to share.
Speaker 4: You'll also find all things related to something to normalize
Speaker 4: right there on the page for you. Most of all,
Speaker 4: thank you so much for spending your time with us today.
Speaker 3: Until next time.