Free Your Inner Guru Laura Tucker

Prior to 2020, Kathleen Oh believed anti-vaccination was the best way she could protect her children.







In this compelling conversation, Kathleen shares how a courageous and empathetic friend led her to understand the deep-seated racism and white privilege underlying her beliefs. Kathleen shares how stepping away from her former community put her on a path of healing and awareness of cult dynamics in her midst.







In this first episode of 2022, Kathleen Oh and Laura take a deep dive into psychedelics, altered states, politics and predators in the world of personal transformation. And why it's necessary for all coaches to critically evaluate the training and bigwigs in their coaching lineage.















Kathleen Oh is an integration coach helping people on their self-exploration journeys. She educates and guides curious explorers through microdosing psychedelics & breathwork, and most importantly, heal and expand into all that’s possible. She is sought after for her authentic, soft-but-confident approach.







Personally, Kathleen has overcome childhood trauma, depression and addiction.







Offline, Kathleen lives in Niagara, Ontario, loves to hike with her dogs. She feels most connected when in nature. Her favourite moments are in the darkness and the deep cold of a Canadian winter.















Mentioned in this episode:







Dr Janja Lalich - janjalalich.com







Take Back Your Life Recovery Workshops







Past episodes: Dr Janja Lalich, Nathanael Garrett Novosel, AdaPia D'Errico















Connect with Kathleen online:







Website - coachkathleenoh.comInstagram - @therealcoachoh







Support Free Your Inner Guru:







Become a Patreon Supporter – patreon.com/freeyourinnerguruRate and review on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser or CastboxShop the merchandise – freeyourinnerguru.com/shop







Stay in touch:







Subscribe to the Free Your Inner Guru newsletterInstagram – @freeyourinnnerguru and @thatlauratucker

Sean Tucker is a photographer, filmmaker and writer who inspires fellow creatives through his popular YouTube channel and new book “The Meaning in the Making,” in which he shares his philosophy for the creative life.







Before Sean became a photographer, he studied theology and worked as a Baptist priest in South Africa. You’re going to hear about his journey into and out of the priesthood, then into photography, why he started his Youtube channel, and wrote his recent book The Meaning in the Making where he demystifies the creative process.







You're going to love this rich conversation. It touches on all the topic categories of this podcast: creativity, spirituality, finding and using your voice, and stepping away from structured, institutionalized religion.







As we close out 2021, Sean gives us a real sense of what it's like to bring all parts of ourselves to our work, as evidenced in his philosophical approach to photography. He wants us to put our voice out into the world, imbue it with more meaning to tell a better story and give a deeper truth.







This is an intense and hopeful conversation, one that I hope takes you into the next year with a renewed creative focus of your own.







I give you The Meaning in the Making, a conversation with Sean Tucker.







Mentioned in this episode:







Sean Tucker, The Meaning in the Making: The why and how behind our human need to create







Connect with Sean online:







Website - seantucker.photographyInstagram - @seantuckYoutube







Support Free Your Inner Guru:







Become a Patreon Supporter – patreon.com/freeyourinnerguruRate and review on Apple Podcasts, Podchaser or CastboxShop the merchandise – freeyourinnerguru.com/shop







Stay in touch:







Subscribe to the Free Your Inner Guru newsletterInstagram – @freeyourinnnerguru and @thatlauratucker

Sarah Edmondson and Nippy Ames are subjects of HBO's documentary series The Vow, a story of indoctrination and exposing the NXIVM cult, and hosts of the podcast A Little Bit Culty.







I am delighted to have Sarah and Nippy join me for a "part 2" conversation that begins on A Little Bit Culty today!







One of my goals is that both of our extreme experiences be relatable to new age and self help consumers.  Take away the branding and sex trafficking of NXIVM, and the head shaving and fatal sweat lodge of my experience, and what remains is a seemingly regular self help organization. Maybe it is. Maybe it's a cult. Maybe it's both.







One thing is certain: Our hindsight can become your foresight.







Listen as we explore sales and recruitment tactics, coercion, the mind-fuck of "at-causedness," and "the NXIVM flip," which you'll find everywhere in new age and self help circles, masquerading as personal responsibility and looking to yourself as the creator of everything in your life, including narcissistic and cult abuse.







Sarah Edmondson is a Canadian actress who has stared in the CBS series Salvation and more than twelve films for the Hallmark Channel and Lifetime. In 2019, Sarah published Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life.







Nippy Ames has come full circle back to what he was born to do: performing, creating, and truth telling. He's proving to be an emerging voice in the conversation around what it means to be an upstanding man, husband, and father in 2021.







Sarah and Nippy discuss their healing process with the help of experts and fellow survivors on their podcast A Little Bit Culty.







Mentioned in this episode:







2 ways to win Sarah's memoir:







Write a review of Free Your Inner Guru - quick links here: freeyourinnerguru.com/reviewBecome a Patreon supporter at patreon.com/freeyourinnerguru







Draw to be held on Instagram Live - December 30 at noon ET







Books:







Scarred: The True Story of How I Escaped NXIVM, the Cult that Bound My Life, Sarah EdmondsonTake Back Your Life: Recovering from Cults and Abusive Relationships, Janja LalichDon't Call It a Cult, Sarah Berman







Connect with Sarah and Nippy online:







Podcast & website: A Little Bit CultyInstagram - @alittlebitculty @sarahedmondson @anthonyames11







Connect with Free Your Inner Guru:







Become a Patreon Supporter – patreon.com/freeyourinnerguruJoin the Leadership Community – freeyourinnerguru.com/communityShop the merchandise – freeyourinnerguru.com/shop

We welcome back Shulamit ber Levtov, the Entrepreneur's Therapist for a deep dive into individual, organizational, and systemic abuse.







Shulamit is a resilience and mindset consultant who uses her background as a trauma therapist to help women identifying entrepreneurs manage their mindset and pilot their emotions so they can overcome the anxiety and isolation of running a business.







You may remember Shulamit from our conversation in Episode 88: Cult Dynamics and Abusive, Intimate Relationships. When we finished, it felt like there was a lot more to cover. So here we are. My hope for this episode is that it gives you context for your own experience, for the experience of someone you care for, and for the abusive culture and systems we are immersed in, whether we are conscious of it or not.







Before we go any further, I don't think I've ever given a trigger warning before, and I don't like them for a couple of reasons. First of all, they can be triggering in and of themselves and put us into a heightened state where we expect to be triggered. And so then we're triggered. It's that good, old self fulfilling prophecy. Secondly, I'm not your parent here to protect you from challenging topics. Otherwise nobody learns and this podcast wouldn't exist. However, this is an episode that might best be consumed in a quiet place with a warm tea or coffee and a journal nearby, or on a quiet walk, so that you can absorb and reflect at your own rate and pace.







I'm told that this is how many of you listen to this podcast. I'm not saying this to turn you off. I just want you to know, because I became emotional midway through and we had to take a little break before guiding the conversation into reflecting on what it's like to wake up to abusive relationships in our life.







And how to use self compassion to self-regulate so we can engage our creative problem solving and ask for help. I think this is a serious but hopeful conversation. And I want to be thoughtful about what your experience may be when you consume it. So I guess I am invoking my protective super power after all.







Like always, if you receive value from this episode, please leave a review and sharing it with others. Follow @freeyourinnerguru and @the_entrepreneurs_therapist on Instagram and consider supporting the podcast on Patreon, where you'll have access to the ongoing conversation in our Discourse community for as little as $5 a month.







Mentioned in this episode:







Episode 88: Cult Dynamics and Abusive Intimate Relationships with Shulamit ber Levtov







Duluth Wheel of Power and Control







Duluth Wheel of Culture







Article: Nine Perfect Strangers Made Me a Punchline and Now I'm Punching Back







Judith Herman, Trauma and Recovery: The Aftermath of Violence--From Domestic Abuse to Political Terror







Connect with Shulamit:







websiteInstagram







Support Free Your Inner Guru:







Become a Patreon Supporter – patreon.com/freeyourinnerguruCheck out the Leadership Community – freeyourinnerguru.com/communityShop the merchandise – freeyourinnerguru.com/shop







Stay in touch:







Subscribe to the Free Your Inner Guru newsletterInstagram – @freeyourinnnerguru

Personal experience surviving spiritual and therapeutic abuse led Jenny Cornbleet and Mark Futterman to study cult dynamics and undue influence with a variety of experts in the field.







In the process, they recognized that cult dynamics run rampant in our society and are particularly prevalent in the self-help and coaching industries.







Jenny and Mark now bring an anti-cult approach to all their work, with a knowledge that breaking free from undue influence is key to living authentically and doing what matters most.







Jenny Cornbleet and Mark Futterman are instructional designers, coaches, and consultants. They help people discover what they most want to express through life and work, live according to their values, and make their projects as impactful as possible.







Conversation highlights







Jenny and Mark break down their experience of large group awareness training (LGAT) tactics that are invasive and inappropriate so you can learn the tactics andStrategies to pay attention to language used and get a glimpse behind the indoctrination curtainPowering through: the potential problem with getting comfortable with being uncomfortable.When it feels more dangerous to leave than to stay.Controlling practices that have made their way into norm in the self help industryIndoctrination and the gradual erosion of your better judgment and critical thinking.Coaching as a permission based conversationTowards consumer awareness: this is what will drive the marketCult dynamics IRL: Jenny and Mark share examples of when they were convinced to act against their instincts.How cults are changing in digital times.







Mentioned in this episode:







Conspirituality podcastTake Back Your Life, Dr Janja Lalichigotout.orgWriting to Reckon workshop with Gerette Buglion







Connect with Jenny and Mark online:







Website







Instagram







Support Free Your Inner Guru:







Become a Patreon Supporter – patreon.com/freeyourinnerguruCheck out the Leadership Community – freeyourinnerguru.com/communityShop the merchandise – freeyourinnerguru.com/shop







Stay in touch:







Subscribe to the Free Your Inner Guru newsletterInstagram – @freeyourinnnerguru

It's a podcast swap! Steve McCready is our guest host, and I'm at the guest microphone.







Steve McCready is the host of The Sensitive Rebel podcast. He is here to interview me about life before, since, and lessons learned from my involvement in the self help industry and my involvement in “that sweat lodge.” Over on the Sensitive Rebel, you will find an episode called Laura Tucker Helps Steve Free His Inner Guru.







Steve McCready is a coach with a background as a psychotherapist. Steve and I share many interests including psychology, photography, and creativity.







After a couple of Zooms geeking out on art and gear, we had a “what if” conversation about interviewing each other. To shake things up, we decided to be guests on our own shows!







The timing is serendipitous. The 12th anniversary of the Sedona sweat lodge was October 8th. A dozen years later, I’m still peeling back layers of this experience and sharing them, but mostly on other podcasts!







Steve’s background as a therapist enables him to hone in on challenging topics with empathy. He speaks with authority to their impact on psychology and mental health, making him the perfect host for this conversation.







No joke, by the time we finished, I was tempted to title this episode “Would Someone Please Just Give Me a Red Flag?!?”







Conversation highlights:







Why I’m rebelling against the status quo in the self help industry.Cult dynamics and toxic leaders in our current social environment.The twists and turns of my journey that led me to “that sweat lodge.”Creativity and photography - learning the rules in order to break them.Societal pressure on women at certain ages from the patriarchal status quo.The real secret of the North American self help movement. It's steeped in privilege.The rapacious nature of “sell them what they want, give them what you think they need.”The clarity that’s come this past year, learning about indoctrination and cult dynamics.Recognizing when we are getting swept away by our feelings, so we can actually see the red flags waving in our faces.







Mentioned in this episode:







Thank you, Steve for being a kind and empathetic host. My interview of Steve for episode 23 of The Sensitive Rebel is here







Connect with Steve McCready







Website - sensitiverebel.comWebsite - stevemccready.comInstagram - @thesensitiverebel







Support Free Your Inner Guru:







Become a Patreon Supporter – patreon.com/freeyourinnerguruCheck out the Leadership Community - freeyourinnerguru.com/communityShop the merchandise – freeyourinnerguru.com/shop







Stay in touch:







Subscribe to the Free Your Inner Guru newsletterInstagram - @freeyourinnnerguru