My Origin Story
There is too much to tell in a short bio but you can listen to This JW Life or read these articles (part 1, part 2) about me to get a feel for my origin story. A very abbreviated version with some highlights would be as such:
- Born into an average family that joined a cult when I was 8 years old
- Took to the teachings, lost who I had started out to be in favor of this “new personality” I was given
- Lived every day thinking tomorrow was the end of the world
- Bypassed college, including scholarship offers, because higher education was not really what we were expected to pursue
- Married in the cult, of course, as relationships with outsiders (even friendships) were discouraged
- Tried to be everything they wanted me to be and struggled to keep up
- 2008 was suicidal as I could never be good enough and the pressure to be more than I was crushed me
- Started learning about ADHD, executive function disorders, other people’s problems, narcissism, emotional abuse, etc.
- Started getting mentally and emotionally healthy myself and as I did I began to see that I was in a toxic environment
- Dropped 50 pounds that I had gained through my depression
- Paid off $58,000 in tax debt accumulated through depression, mismanagement, and time given to the cult instead of life
- Woke up, realized the gravity of what I was involved in and started helping my wife to wake up
- Left the cult and experienced extreme shunning by everyone we ever knew. We no longer exist to them. We are dead.
That’s a good quick synopsis. I’ve always been that guy that gets things done, the person that people go to when they need something. When I needed someone or something there was nobody there. I kept searching, kept looking, kept digging and I found answers and healthier ways of being. I didn’t know that by getting healthy I was actually preparing to leave everything and everyone that I ever knew behind. Once healthy I could not stay in that toxic and awful environment. Healthy and unhealthy don’t mix well. It came at great cost but I found freedom and helped my wife to do the same.
Life wasn’t worth the price I was paying until I got healthy and found freedom. Freedom was worth the price.
Who I Am Today
You can’t go through something like that without being a changed person. I’ve learned so much about myself, about other people, about life. I learned that there was a thing called empathy, something I had never seen before. I learned perspective-taking and the breadth of the human experience. I bring these things into my life today. I have more friends than I ever had in the cult. I can’t keep up with everyone, a problem I never had before. I experience amazing and beautiful things in life through these friends and through my renewed appreciation for this life that we have instead of it being something to merely be endured as I was taught growing up.
I’m also free now in that I can allow myself to be vulnerable and beautiful things happen through that openness. I told my personal story on my first podcast called This JW Life and it was not only cathartic for me but tens of thousands of people have listened and I’ve received so many messages of hope from people that have been helped. I then started Shunned to help others to tell their stories. That has created even more connection, more love in this world, more understanding, all from the concept of vulnerability.
I now live a life that is far beyond what I ever thought I’d have and I’m not paying a heavy price any longer.
Who Am I As A Cult Recovery Coach?
“Receivable Directness” is a term coined by a friend and fellow coach to describe me as I was talking to her about difficult subjects. I have the ability to be direct with a person while taking their feelings into account and truly seeing them, and that helps others to see themselves. A good coach should be able to provide that mirror for you without hitting you over the head with it. I really strive to ask great questions to help people to see things themselves because most of us are far more capable than we realize or would be able to give ourselves credit for. At times someone can’t see something and I use “receivable directness” to point something out because often we are too far in the forest to see the trees. I love looking for patterns, seeing how things that I’m told intertwine and play off of one another, and then opening someone’s eyes to those things so that they can see a core belief or idea behind them all.
I’ve been involved in groups with people that have left cults as well as groups of people that have never been anywhere near something like that. What have I learned? I’ve learned that we all have cultural or familial expectations that are put on us and many of us live out roles that were handed to us when we were young. Coaching is about creating awareness and I use that to help people to start noticing trends or patterns that arise from these things because no problem can be fixed until we acknowledge it. We remain stuck, we hold ourselves back, happiness remains elusive. Once we can become aware of what stands in our way we can look for ways to remove the obstacle, go around the obstacle, work with the obstacle, etc.
I love people. I love seeing someone have that moment of clarity where things click and a blurry picture comes into focus. I’ve made so many changes in my life. They weren’t always easy at the moment but the have all been worth it. I believe that many people never give themselves a chance to be fully alive. Never living is far more frightening than dying. I want to help you live!