Poema Podcast

Poema S7 050 | Marie (Mystic Kootenaygirl) on Deconstruction & Liberation

Today my friend Marie joins me to tell her deconstruction story. She talks about how she and her husband found their way into evangelical culture as adults, and how she slowly began to feel trapped in toxic religion.
She shares her experience of purity culture and how this impacted her marriage & her faith. Marie then tells us how she began her journey out of of toxic religion and purity culture, and found true liberation on the other side.

Poema S7 049 | Ana on Narcisstic Abuse & Christian Fundamentalism

**Trigger warning: Narcissistic abuse, spiritual abuse, emotional abuse**
My friend Ana returns to the podcast today, to share her lived experience of narcissistic abuse within Christian fundamentalism. 
It's a powerful, discomforting story which shows us the depths of narcissism within evangelical Christianity and patriarchy, and how challenging it is to break free of it. 
Ana tells us how she found a way to freedom, her deconstruction, the challenges she faced along the way - and still does - and how she discovered freedom to be fully herself & embrace her identity an LGBTQIA native woman. 
 
 

Poema S7 048 | Bridge Livwat on Life Uncaged

Today I'm joined by John Howey, otherwise known as Bridge Livwat, who shares with us his personal, spiritual and creative journey.
He talks about his faith deconstruction and the journey from aspiring worship leader into creating his own music, and his creative and spiritual journeys intertwined and interacted. We talk about our shared love of the work of Rob Bell, and how he's impacted each of our lives and journeys, including the principle of sabbath, and time.
Ultimately, it's a story of how John escaped from a God and life which was caged and restricted, to a an uncaged life and spirituality, with a divine who is not contained by religion or structure.

Poema S7 047 | Cat with the Cards on Journeying into Tarot

My friend Cat, tarot reader, joins me today. They tell their powerful, challenging story from evangelicalism through deconstruction into tarot and spellwork, and coming out. 
They also tell us about how they discovered the transformative power of tarot and spellwork, and the impact it's had on their life. 
It's a discomforting but honest story, of Cat's experiences within an evangelical cult, the struggles of leaving it behind and the freedom from discovering & embracing their true identity.
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Poema S7 046 | April Kling Mayer on Why Creativity Is Spirituality

Today I'm joined by podcaster, creator, artist and spiritual mentor April Kling Meyer.
April tells us her own story and talks to us about the intersection between creativity and spiritual journey. She shares through her story and experience how our spiritual and personal journeys inform our creative journey.
Finally, we discover how we can use the energy of grief and trauma to transform our lives, our spirituality and allow us create something fresh, new and life giving.

Poema S7 045 | Jenna DeWitt & Holly Stallcup on Being Sex Positive

I'm honoured to be joined again by my friends Jenna DeWitt & Holly Stallcup today, to explore healthy sexual ethics in the church and being sex positive.
We explore topics like masturbation, sex toys and other things which rarely get discussed in church environments. We also go on to explore different sexual ethics, and how we should honour and respect each others sexual ethics, even if they're different. 
We discuss how harmful it can be to force one sexual ethic on everyone, and how sexuality in our culture is very static.
We share about how this static view differs from our basic biological make ups, which are all very different and how every ethical expression of sexuality - including things like abstinence and asexuality and waiting till marriage  - all belong. 
Holly and Jenna have such wisdom in this area and talk with such honesty, in a way which is reassuring, inclusive and encouraging, without shame. 

Poema S7 044 | Suzanne & Declan Dewitt Hall on Being Transgender Before God

I'm honoured today to be joined by Suzanne and Declan DeWitt Hall, authors, activists and Christians. They tell us their story as a couple, and in particular the journey of Declan to embrace his gender identity.
Declan talks about his own journey of coming to terms with his true gender identity, being honest about this with herself, before God and the world, and beginning the transitioning into that identity. 
It's a powerful, courageous story, which shows once again the divine loves and accepts us as we are, for who we are, and is fully inclusive of the LGBTQI community. 

Poema S7 043 | The Trace Bell Experience

My friend Trace Bell joins me for the first time today Trace has done a lot of work, some with his dad Rob Bell, on talking about spirituality, awareness, time and spiral dynamics.
Today he shares his own spiritual journey, and in particular how his curiosity led him into an understanding of awareness. He shares how he began to see his own consciousness and awareness as separate from his body and even time itself, and how this impacted his understanding of spirituality, his work and his personal journey.
We both share stories of experiences we've had which have given us a greater awareness that time and our bodies are constructs/people which exist within our awareness/consciousness, rather than the other way around. It's a powerful, eye opening and fascinating conversation you won't want to miss. 

Poema S7 042 | Jim Woods on Storytelling & Writing His First Novel

I'm delighted to welcome back my friend, writer, author and coach Jim Woods to the show this week! Jim's just released his first novel 'Bite the Bullet', and today we talk about the creative process behind the novel, how long it took to write, and the experience of novel writing.
Jim talks about the power of storytelling, why stories resonate with us why the best stories connect with us. He also tells me about the process of creating characters and writing their stories, and the interesting dynamic which can happen between author and character.
Jim has such wisdom about story, and has great insight on the creative process. Well worth a listen. 

Poema S7 041 | Jennifer Mathews on Grief, Loss & Connection

Today I'm joined by TED speaker and grief/loss facilitator Jennifer Mathews.
Jennifer tells her own tragic, in some ways unique, and powerful story of loss...and how her response to the death of her life partner was not one she calls grief, and the lessons this experience taught her about dealing with loss.
Jennifer explores how processing loss can lead to connection, and how she experienced this, and why it's so important for our healing and thriving that we confront our trauma and loss, rather than hide from it.