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Lean Not On Your Own Understanding: Learning to Trust Yourself After Evangelicalism with Alanah Sabatini
465 Plays1 year ago
Churches that behave like cults are typically quick to quote scriptures like “the heart is desperately wicked, you can’t trust it” or “you can’t lean on your own understanding.” As a consequence, those who grow up in these churches have a hard time learning to trust their intuition and who they know themselves to be deep down.
In this episode, I’m talking with the woman responsible for Now I See’s intro music, Alanah Sabatini. Alanah is a beloved TikTok and Instagram creator who rewrites the hymns we all know and love with new lyrics that reflect the healing journey many of us former faithfuls are on. Together, we discuss the power and magic of learning to trust yourself, building community, and what she’s up to next.
Resources from Alanah
- Join Alanah’s Community on Discord
- Follow Alanah’s Music on Spotify
- Follow Alanah’s Music on Apple Music
- Follow Alanah on TikTok
- Follow Alanah on Instagram
- Watch Alanah on YouTube
- Support Alanah on Patreon
Links
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Transcript
Introduction to Now I See Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
I was lost in utter darkness I was trapped in toxic shame I was bound by my religion Till I chose to break away
00:00:24
Speaker
Now I'm finding my true colors For the first time I feel free Now I'm learning self compassion And as I heal I'm finding peace
00:00:51
Speaker
Welcome to Now I See, eye-opening stories from the formerly faithful. I'm your host, Amber White, and here, me and my guests share our experiences in loving and leaving rigid faith systems. Together, we shine a light on the dark corners of these institutions and share the joys of rebuilding life on our own terms. I promise you'll leave inspired, even if you are a little teary-eyed.
Meet Alana Sabatini
00:01:23
Speaker
Hi, and welcome back to Now I See. I'm your host, Amber White, and today I have a particularly special episode for you. I'm talking with Alana Sabatini. If you've listened to even this podcast so far, you've heard her work because she is the creator and performer of the intro song for this podcast.
00:01:44
Speaker
Alana is a talented musician, and I knew from the first time I heard her cover of Come Thou Fount that I wanted it to be the intro for this show. We talk about how that came to be in the episode, and if you know me well, you won't be surprised, but every now and then, I'm surprised by my own boldness.
00:02:07
Speaker
Alana's cover of Come Thou Fount, which she has titled True Colors, has swept the entire country and been a balm for so many. And she has multiple covers that I find myself listening to on repeat. I've put several links in the show notes so you can be a part of the community she's building too.
Challenging Evangelical Teachings
00:02:29
Speaker
When Alana told me she wanted to talk about learning to trust herself, I was immediately in. That is not something the evangelical and fundamentalist church realms like to teach. A good summary of how this is taught can be found in John Bloom's article, The Insanity of Trusting Yourself, on desiringgod.org.
00:02:52
Speaker
I don't recommend it. It's a terrible read in which he says, we were not designed to be, quote-unquote, like God in defining what is evil and good. We were designed to be wise as to what is good and innocent as to what is evil, Romans 16.9.
00:03:15
Speaker
And since we have no good apart from God, Psalm 16.2, the beginning of being wise in good and innocent in evil is trusting and obeying Him. Psalm 111.10. God did design us to think for ourselves. That's one reason the tree of knowledge of good and evil was present in the garden. God simply did not design us to think by ourselves.
00:03:42
Speaker
It is not irrational for very limited contingent creatures to depend on the guidance of an omniscient, self-existing creator to know how to live. It is imminently reasonable for us to trust in Him with all our heart. That's wisdom. That's sanity. What's irrational is for us to lean on our own understanding. That's foolishness. That's madness.
00:04:10
Speaker
It's interesting to me that he's able to make any of these claims if he isn't supposed to know the difference between what's good and evil. How do we know what to be innocent to if we can't discern what is evil? And how can we be wise to what is good if we can't discern what it even is? Also, how are we not meant to be like God, but we are made in God's image?
00:04:38
Speaker
These arguments are dangerous and sorely lacking in basic logic. Being taught most of your life that you can't trust yourself has serious consequences. Consider what Dr. Marlene Wynell says in her book, Leaving the Fold.
00:04:56
Speaker
The damage to self is more than hurt self-esteem. Your confidence in your own judgment is destroyed. As an empty shell, you are then open and vulnerable to indoctrination because you cannot trust your thinking. Your thoughts are inadequate, your feelings are irrelevant or misleading, and your basic drives are selfish and destructive.
00:05:22
Speaker
You cannot challenge the religious system because your critical abilities are discredited and your intuitions rendered worthless. Take it from someone who is still working to rebuild their self-esteem 13 years after leaving fundamentalism. This damage follows you when you leave the faith too.
00:05:46
Speaker
It has taken me a very long time to trust in even some of my most basic skills and abilities. And this is a common experience for so many of us who leave our former faiths. But as you'll hear in this episode, it feels amazing to undo it. And I don't want to spoil the conversation, so I won't say too much more. Let's just get into the episode.
Growing Up Nazarene
00:06:22
Speaker
Hi, Alana. I am so excited to have you on the show today. I don't know how many people listening to this know this, but I reached out to you at random on TikTok in a comment because I saw what you were doing and I was so obsessed with it. And I was like, I have to have her on show. And I also
00:06:46
Speaker
need her to do some music for the podcast. It's perfect. I forgot that it was in a comment. Yeah, it was in a comment because I messaged you and it didn't go through and I was like, dang, I'm going to have to do this. Oh, yeah, that was when I had my messages turned off. Man, things have changed. Yeah, quickly. Yeah.
00:07:05
Speaker
Wow. Well, it is great to be here. I've been excited about this podcast ever since I saw that comment and we started talking. So it's an honor. Thank you. It is for me too. I get a lot of people messaging me about the intro song.
00:07:21
Speaker
Who did that? Who is she? What is this? It's really neat. I actually just this week got an email from an older lady in Florida who was like, I don't know if I've ever heard this. Anything like this, it's so different. It's so special. She's in her 70s and deconstructing has been really important to her. I love that so much. Isn't that awesome?
00:07:43
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. I just love what you're doing. Thank you. And it was neat when we first met hearing your story. And so I knew you had to be on an episode because it's a good one.
00:07:55
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, I'm so excited. I know me too. Okay. So I'm going to have you start out by just setting the scene for our listeners. You know, what, where, who, how, why, this is crazy. So I'm going to have you set the scene for our listeners a little bit and just kind of let them know.
00:08:21
Speaker
Where do you come from? What is the religion you were involved in? What was it like? Set the scene and let them know where you've been. Yeah, for sure. So I grew up in Michigan. We were going to church from the moment I was born, basically. I was raised in a Christian home. They put me in a private Christian school. It was based out of a Nazarene church. And I don't know if you know anything about the Nazarene church, but it's very strict. Very strict. Yeah. It's very small.
00:08:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's a pretty small denomination, but that was all I knew because we were put into it pretty quickly growing up. Lots of rules to the point where I got in trouble constantly for stuff that didn't even matter, in my opinion. So I really quickly learned how to walk on eggshells.
00:09:08
Speaker
Yeah. It's not a healthy environment for a small child to grow up in, but he learned how to survive, and that's what I did. Yeah, I'm pretty sure we got enrolled in that private school, we being me and my sister first, and then we started going to the church that it was connected to after that when my parents were looking for more of a family-friendly type church.
00:09:30
Speaker
because the church that I was born into and that we were growing up in originally didn't have a children's program or anything. So I think that's what brought my parents to the Nazarene church that we started going to. So my family got really involved there. I got really involved once I hit youth group age. I got involved on the worship team pretty much right away because my dad was plugged into the worship team and he was like, hey, my daughter plays keys. So they were like, oh, we need keys players.
00:09:58
Speaker
Always. Yeah, literally always. But yeah, that was what really started my love of music. I had only played classical music up until that point. I'd taken classical piano lessons for years at that point. And so that's all that music was to me until I entered worship team spaces. And so I found this really cool sense of belonging there and I really
00:10:22
Speaker
like grabbed onto that and chased after that. I ended up interning with the worship pastor over that church when I was in high school. I started taking like online high school classes so that I was able to do that. And that was a pretty cool experience. That was what got me into producing music because they needed stuff recorded for like tracks on like special songs. And so the worship pastor like got me Ableton Live, which is the recording software I use to this day. So I like kind of credit him for that.
00:10:52
Speaker
And this is like the crazy thing when I think about my story, right? Like there are so many good pieces to it, you know, which I think is, it's interesting to go back and acknowledge that. Anyway, so yeah, intern there. I graduated high school and then I was on staff at that church for a little bit. And then I ended up moving to the other side of the state and attended a worship school at a charismatic, like Pentecostal type church.
00:11:20
Speaker
It's very like feelings driven, which really resonated with my little Pisces soul, you know? I'm a Pisces rising, so I feel it. Oh, yes, so you get it. Thank you.
00:11:33
Speaker
We're really deep in the fields. We like to just flow, you know? It's nice. Yeah, so I really loved it there and the worship team was also very like prestigious. And so that really went to my head real quick. And I was like playing all the time. And I was like, yes, I am a part of this worship team. You know, I'm the best.
00:11:56
Speaker
For our listeners who did not grow up in this world, it doesn't matter what end of the spectrum of Christianity you're on, the music people are known. It is a hierarchy on its own. It's really interesting. Me and my roommate call it church fame. Church fame. We were church famous, for sure. It's a thing, and there's a lot that rides on it. For sure. You're watched.
00:12:23
Speaker
a lot more heavily and more closely. You're held to different standards. Oh, yeah. The rewards and the punishments are different. It's a different world. Yeah, exactly. How did the Pentecostal kind of charismatic
00:12:40
Speaker
music school compared to the Nazarene church you were going to. It was interesting because by the time I left that Nazarene church they had gone more towards the like non-denominational vibe. Okay. So their worship was getting a bit more like emotional and
Questioning Church Teachings
00:12:55
Speaker
they introduced more of like the lights and the like fog machines and like the vibe, you know what I mean?
00:13:01
Speaker
It was kind of like a pretty easy step. It definitely was more intense. There was like the speaking in tongues piece, which never happened in the Nazarene church. And so there was that that really threw me for a loop at first. And although like praying over people, like laying hands on people constantly, we didn't do that at my Nazarene church either. So that was kind of jarring. People were touching me a lot. And I'm like, oh, I'm not comfortable, especially going from the conservative to the more
00:13:31
Speaker
Yeah. Charismatic. That's a big change. The touching and the emotional nature. You really touched on that. They're so different and have different kinds of trauma. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. I don't know. I got used to it pretty quick, though. Like I said, I really liked that environment, at least at first. The feeliness of it just really, it felt natural to me. Again, at least at first.
00:14:00
Speaker
But yeah, so it was a year-long program. I graduated from that. And then I think there was a gap where I was just really involved, but I wasn't on staff. But then I eventually was hired. And so part of my job was to play keys in their prayer services. They did an international house of prayer type prayer thing throughout the week. So I'm sure a lot of your listeners will be familiar with that type of vibe.
00:14:26
Speaker
For those of you who are not, it's just prayer meetings constantly throughout the week and it's very exhausting. It's like a revival, but just prayer.
00:14:36
Speaker
Yeah, it's not just like talking prayer either. Like there's music behind all of it. So the band is on the stage the entire, for us it was like hour long services, but we had rehearsals before that too. So every day that I had a prayer meeting, I would be like committed for basically three hours. If you include all the rehearsal time and set up and tear down, whatever, including the service.
00:14:59
Speaker
So once I got put on staff, the amount of prayer meetings we had increased. And so I was called on more and more and more. And I really started to feel burnt out, but I was so sold out to the environment and to the mission. And I was very much willing to sacrifice myself for that. I thought it was a good cause to sacrifice myself for. Didn't ask any questions.
00:15:27
Speaker
And yeah, that's that's when things really started unraveling from there. That was like the first the burnout right there. That's when I. Yeah, that was the spark that started the forest fire. I was amazed watching the Hillsong documentary. Oh, my gosh. Just how far they push a volunteer. Yep. I had a hard time getting through that documentary for that reason because I saw myself in it. Yeah. Big time. I thought about you and one of the girls was talking about how much she was paid for the amount of labor she was doing.
00:15:55
Speaker
I wonder if that might be your story too, because it's just wild. And, you know, an episode previous to this one, you know, we heard from my friend Brandon, who was in the Southern Baptist Convention, same experience. And his mother too, who was, you know, part time but working in the ambulance a week, that's abuse. Yeah, it is. It's not good. It's bad behavior and it's predatory.
00:16:20
Speaker
Yeah. But they've got God on their side, right? Yeah. So they use that to shame people for not being willing to push themselves super far. You must not, you know, God died for you. Yeah. Sent his son to die for you and you can't even do this one thing for him.
00:16:40
Speaker
I mean like, you'll never have another job if you take it to its end. Right. Oh my gosh. It's really interesting how universal that experience is. Yeah. Regardless of denomination too, interestingly. Yeah. Regardless of denomination. Yep. And I think about when you think about whether or not something is
00:17:08
Speaker
a habit or part of a culture. If it's happening that frequently, that's not a one off. Oh, this one church did it. Oh, it was just Hillsong. This is a universal experience across, you know, everyone who's been on the show, everyone who's talking about this publicly, like they have similar stories to tell. And, you know, if part of your culture is the abuse of labor,
00:17:33
Speaker
Maybe it's time to change your culture. Yeah, like those could be big yikes. Big yikes, big yikes. Churches of people, people's face, it's a community. In my mind, the things that you read in the New Testament and the sermons that you hear, you're supposed to be putting people first. Absolutely. Like God and then people, but still, you're supposed to be looking out for each other and there's a lot of taking advantage of.
00:18:00
Speaker
Yeah, I remember when I first started feeling that burnout, that was the main thing that I was getting mad about. I was like, I thought that we were supposed to love people. The whole purpose of this spirituality, this belief set, is people. Jesus came for people to save people, so why are we sacrificing ourselves? I'm a people.
00:18:26
Speaker
I don't know. It didn't make sense to me. Yeah. It didn't make any sense to me. Like just because I proclaim the name of Jesus doesn't mean I don't need eight hours of sleep at night. You know what I mean? Right. It's interesting. Like the shame that comes with that to make it work is also it's alarming. Yeah. Because it doesn't stop with just that. Right. Like it's how can they bring you down as a person?
00:18:55
Speaker
Yeah. So far that you maybe wouldn't even question it. Yep. That's where I was at. I was so deep in the shame, so deep in it. And that was just like one aspect of the shame that I was drowning in because there were other layers to it that I'll get into.
Finding Personal Faith
00:19:12
Speaker
But yeah, it was because I felt like everything was my problem. Like I was the one who was wrong for feeling burnt out, you know, because that's what they kind of drill into you. Yeah.
00:19:25
Speaker
Well, that's just your said nature. Yeah. Having you go against their will for you. Yeah. I'm sorry. God's will, my mistake. God's will. Oh, you know, it's always interesting to me that God's will ends up being whoever's will you're close to. Right.
00:19:48
Speaker
They don't think about that. No, they don't think about that, do they not? Because God's will to them is just whatever they want it to be. Yeah. And yeah, my therapist likes to say they're not playing the tape to the end. Yeah, that's a good way to put it. It is, isn't it? I love that statement. I use it a lot now, because it just makes so much sense. Like, what's the rest of it? You're not finishing the thought. And yeah, you're not following the logic to its end. Yeah.
00:20:16
Speaker
And I think the idea that even a pastor could know what God's will is for your life is really far-fetched, even if you're in it. Yeah. What's interesting... So this was one thing I didn't realize until shit really started hitting the fan for me. I was talking to my dad about it, wondering what I should do. I was telling him what all was happening.
00:20:35
Speaker
He pointed me to a bunch of Bible verses because he's that type of dude who just knows the Bible inside and out. The Bible verses he was sending me was like, don't let humans control your life or make decisions for your life, which goes completely against what I was taught by these leaders.
00:20:53
Speaker
Right. And so I opened my Bible to this verse. I think there was one in Isaiah. I couldn't tell you the exact reference, but that's the message of it. And I just stared at it for five minutes because I could not believe that those words were actually in my Bible. But it set me free. I was like, you're right. This pastor is just another human being. I am a human being, so I should be able to make a decision. Not this dude. It's my life.
00:21:22
Speaker
Yep. It is fascinating to me how many people end up leaving their church because they read scripture. Right. Oh my gosh. Yeah. It's so wild. Especially when you're born into it and you just are around it your whole life, it's easy to take for granted. Yeah. And then you sit down and you do one of those like year, I'm going to read through the Bible in a year. And you start hitting some stuff in, you know, early on that you're like, wait, God said, what? Yep. God told them to do what?
00:21:52
Speaker
Like, oh, all of a sudden murder is not one of the Ten Commandments? What is going on? And it just kind of starts messing with you a little bit. You start realizing there's inconsistencies all around you and it ends up leading so many people out. Yeah. Man, who knew the Bible could be a stumbling block, you know?
00:22:12
Speaker
I hear that phrase so infrequently now. Thanks for being here. You're so welcome. I had to include that evangelical language. You know what I mean? Yep. Yeah. For those of you who don't know the word stumbling block, the phrase is basically when you cause somebody else to sin. And it's mostly used against women who make men lust after them because they curl their hair too nice.
00:22:37
Speaker
Their perfume was too seductive, I don't know. It gets ridiculous. I literally had a sermon preach to me about perfume once, so. Are you serious? Dead serious, dead serious. Women's retreat, the wilds. Early 2000s when this was peaking. Oh my gosh. Yep, your perfume couldn't cause them into lust, so be careful. You know what's wild to me? It's like, how do you know which one?
00:23:05
Speaker
Right. And that's just like a blanket statement. Like all men will stumble with Taylor Swift's brand of perfume. What is there to be done? And then it's your fault. Yeah, it's not your fault. Man, I'm so proud of us for surviving those days. Good Lord. Me too. Like when you go back and think about it, and then you think about the current things you're working through.
00:23:33
Speaker
It kind of just all makes sense, doesn't it? Yeah, it really does. I'm like, oh, why am I unpacking so much shame? And, you know, why am I struggling with self worth so much? And it's like, oh, yeah, I couldn't even pick a perfume on my own. Yeah, exactly. Right. Sometimes I'd be complaining to my therapist about something and she's like, you told me once that this happened, like in the school you grew up in, right? And I was like, oh, oh, you're right.
00:24:00
Speaker
Like it makes sense. It's just been ingrained and you thought you were over it, but it's still hanging around. And I think that self worth thing is the one I hear the most because, and I'm excited that we're going to get to talk about this because I am so ready to hear what you have to say about like being taught not to trust yourself. The idea that your heart is desperately wicked beyond all things, who can know it, lean not on your own understanding.
00:24:30
Speaker
Just have faith, like all of these things come up regularly in these worlds. And if you do start to question it, you're so quickly shamed and quickly shut down. And you try to make decisions for yourself and all of a sudden everybody's against you. It's a strange thing.
00:24:53
Speaker
It really is. Would you like me to dive into the story of how I left? Yeah. You know what? That's a, this is the perfect time for that. Tell me what it is that got you out. Cause you were up in it, right? Like you're up. Oh yeah. I like ascended the hierarchy and everything. I did it. It's my new thing. Yeah. When you get to that point, there's a lot of levels to get there. Yeah. There's levels just to get into choir, much less be
00:25:22
Speaker
leading music and being a representative of the congregation. So that's in it. You've got to be in it to win it to get there. So I'm really, really curious what led you out of that point because a lot of people get there and don't leave.
00:25:37
Speaker
Yeah, before I get into that, I just have to make one comment about that hierarchy thing. I think now that I'm out of it, I think it's actually dangerous that churches do this to such young people, like myself. I was put into it real young. I was in high school when I started leading for like, quote unquote, big church back in the Nazarene church and stuff.
00:25:58
Speaker
They meant well, and I had the best of intentions, but I was 17. It went to my head immediately, and I was like, yes, I am the best. I am the chosen one, if you will. And I look back on that now, and I used to have a lot of shame that I used to feel so proud and so much better than everybody else, honestly. I used to have a lot of shame about that, but they put me in that position
00:26:26
Speaker
since I was 13. And I was constantly looked up to and being told that I was so talented and all this stuff. And I see it happen in my other deconstructing worship friends too. They have a lot of the same things to say. They struggled so much with
00:26:44
Speaker
coming down off of this prideful high, this like crazy ego that was kind of given to them, and then shamed out of them at the same time. I don't know. It's like so weird. I could go on for days about it. But I just I had to acknowledge that before I get into like the thick of my story. I'm glad you did because it is supreme gaslighting. Yeah, just constant. It is your whole world there.
00:27:08
Speaker
You're this representative of the church, but at the same time you're nothing. You're born into sin and you're terrible, but you're this gift to God and his people playing music. It's really, it's a really weird spiral to get stuck in.
00:27:21
Speaker
Yeah, I remember having pastors saying the favor that David in the Bible had, and he was a musician, and so they would compare it to the worship team musicians. Especially in worship school, they said this to us a lot. The musicians are God's chosen people, and the Levites and all this stuff, and so it went to all of our heads.
00:27:41
Speaker
But at the same time, we're like held to this crazy standard and like watched like hawks, dude. And so like, which is it? You know, are we like the chosen people or are we like children that have to be babysat? You know, I don't know. It's just it's a weird dynamic. And I feel like we need to talk about that more. Yeah, it is a weird dynamic. And I think when I think of my own story, I think about like I was a mis-evangelist.
00:28:08
Speaker
I would talk to anybody about our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I would knock on your door, shamelessly knock on your door. I think about how much praise I got for that and how much shame I felt. I flew back and forth to Texas a lot to see my dad and if I didn't witness to the person on the plane next to me.
00:28:32
Speaker
I would feel so much guilt and shame about that for weeks, weeks because I didn't, you know, and I just feel like there's something to be said about the fact that churches target young people specifically. Yeah. And they'll say it. They don't want to lose you when you get older and go to college and all of a sudden the world is more attractive than the church. And it's like, is that what it is? Or maybe that they're old enough to see what happened.
00:29:00
Speaker
how unhealthy it is. Anyways, very important rabbit trail, but still a rabbit trail. Extremely important.
00:29:10
Speaker
As far as my stuff goes, I would say the burnout really started in the beginning of 2020, which did not coincide with COVID at first, interestingly.
Health and Exploitation in Church
00:29:20
Speaker
It wasn't even a thing when I started feeling the rub. We had a bunch of prayer services in January because they do a fasting and praying thing, like 21 days in January every year.
00:29:32
Speaker
And that year, it was like crazy, like revival, quote unquote, was like breaking out and like the prayer meetings were popping. And so we were getting called on more and more and more and the services would go way longer than they were planned to. So it was just like crazy pull on my time and energy. And I was there for it. Like it was honestly, it was fun. I wrote a song that got sung in one of the prayer meetings and it like kind of blew up inside the church again, like church famous thing like, oh, there's a lot of song. Oh, my gosh.
00:30:02
Speaker
And so I was there for it, but I was contributing to my own burnout by constantly being there, saying yes, doing all the things because I felt like I wanted to and needed to. So that was January, February. Then I found out I was diagnosed with skin cancer, a super rare type of skin cancer in February. Mind you, COVID hadn't even come around yet. Okay, so this is pre-COVID.
00:30:30
Speaker
This was pre-COVID, yeah. All of a sudden, I was like, oh, shoot, I have to focus on my own health right now for the first time in my life. And it wasn't melanoma, which can be aggressive. Don't get me wrong, melanoma is definitely something to be concerned about. But the type that I had was so rare that my dermatologist had never seen it in her career.
00:30:54
Speaker
Yeah, it was some form of sarcoma. They needed to send me to a hospital across the state that actually specialized in it because there was nobody in the area who knew how to treat it. So it was really scary for me. And so my mental energy started going towards that. Meanwhile, I was still being pulled on so frequently because prayer meetings were continuing to be ramped up. And it was in my job description to play whenever I was called on, basically.
00:31:23
Speaker
So it was like I felt that tension increase dramatically after my diagnosis because I was constantly driving across the state to go get an MRI done or these other tests. It was basically like every couple weeks I was over there. It was just really stressful because my parents weren't around at that time. I had moved across the state. So I would see them occasionally and they were there for me and they were wonderful, but I just didn't live with them.
00:31:50
Speaker
So that was hard for me. It was a tough time. And then COVID happened a couple weeks after that. Just truffle down. Yeah. So the way that our church handled COVID was they didn't have in-person services.
00:32:09
Speaker
but they still did prayer meetings online. So the worship team had to still come in. They put our station six feet apart. We didn't have to wear masks around each other, but they still encouraged like use hand sanitizer, stay six feet apart. But we still had to come in for our live streamed prayer meetings. And this caused them to like blow up.
00:32:27
Speaker
among the congregation. So they were bored during the pandemic, let's watch the prayer meetings. So they would start sharing them with their friends. It started spreading around the country. We would get notifications that people were watching from across the world. It was kind of insane.
00:32:47
Speaker
And so my workload somehow increased even more during the pandemic, while I had cancer, while everyone was worried about getting sick. Did the church know at this point that you were very sick? Yes, they did. Yeah, I should have mentioned that. Yeah, so I told them right off the bat. When I got the call from my doctor telling me the news, I immediately called the worship pastor because I had rehearsal that night. And I was like so emotionally distraught.
00:33:15
Speaker
And I was like, hey, like, I just got diagnosed with cancer. I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything tonight. Like, I just need some time to like decompress. I need to sit with this. I need to process, take care of myself. And he didn't let me stay home. Really? Yeah. He was like, it would be good for you to be around people who love you. And I think you should still come in. And the way he phrased it, I said, yes. I was like, OK, like, you're probably right.
00:33:45
Speaker
But no one ever mentioned it when I got to rehearsal and we just kind of played through the set and it was just a normal rehearsal and I went home. I'm honestly surprised nobody even prayed with you? Yeah, no. That didn't happen until a couple weeks later when I asked for prayer in a group setting. Wow. Yeah. Not even that. That's surprising. Honestly, it surprised me too.
00:34:13
Speaker
Yeah. And so sad. Like this is your community. Yeah. I felt... This is the people you spend a lot of time with. Right. I felt very alone. And that was the first time I realized like, maybe these people don't love me for me. Maybe they just love me for what I can give to them. Something you said in the beginning of that, when you were telling me about this, sticking out to me too, that you wanted to stay home and you wouldn't let you do that.
00:34:41
Speaker
Like it's an ongoing pattern of not listening to your body, right? Because you're not allowed to listen to your body. You don't know what's best for your body. You don't know what's best for you in that moment. Yeah, they do. And it disconnects you from the embodiment experience that you really need to have to be healthy in your mind and your physical body too.
00:35:05
Speaker
I just think that was an interesting thing that even in that moment. I'm glad you made that connection because it was something I had always been bad at growing up is listening to my body and trusting what it's telling me. That's always been not a strength of mine.
00:35:22
Speaker
And then in the environment that I was in, it was actively discouraged. And so I just got worse and worse at it. And I basically just didn't want to be in my body at any time. I would often dissociate. I started on anxiety meds around that time just because I was dissociating so often. So it is interesting to like look back on little moments like that and be like, that played into that for sure. Yeah, the dissociation part is really real.
00:35:49
Speaker
I hear that from a lot of folks, and it's definitely a big part of my story. There are pictures of me from when I'm really young, dissociating. Really? Oh yeah, I'd be in the middle of Chuck E. Cheese as a child, just gone. Completely disconnected from the experience because I just need it to look too now. Yeah.
00:36:07
Speaker
It's really interesting stuff. And the embodiment piece is sometimes the final frontier for us. Yeah, I would agree with that. Because that's the hardest thing, just like we connect those two parts. I'm 34 and I've been out for 13 years and I'm really just learning that.
00:36:28
Speaker
starting to do it. So I'm glad to see you thinking about that and doing that early on because it's a game changer. Listening to your body changes your life. Honestly though, I'm to a point now, obviously I still, I feel like it's going to be a lifelong healing process for me to fully inhabit my body again. But I'm at the point now where it's how I make most of my decisions, which was very much discouraged in the church.
00:36:57
Speaker
but it's like when I trust my gut that means like feeling what my body is feeling like quite literally physically what my body is feeling and it helps me determine the best course of action for pretty much any decision it does it does it's helped me make a lot of decisions recently and every single one has been the right one yeah exactly leaning into it just feeling it yep so that thing that they tell you not to do because it actually is a very cultish thing to tell you not to do
00:37:27
Speaker
Right. It's actually the thing that you really need to do. It's a practice. And that's why they tell you not to do it because you're going to leave. That's exactly right. That's why they tell me not to do it. It's a huge, it'll change your life. Once you start really feeling into it and trusting yourself again, you're going to be a lot happier. It's so true. And I think less anxious for sure. It's eased anxiety a lot.
00:37:56
Speaker
Yeah, actually, I am in the process of transitioning off those meds right now. Wow. And it's very exciting for me. It's like a process for sure. And I'm feeling like a level of brain fog as my body's adjusting. But it's like I feel good about it now. And my doctor's obviously walking me through that whole weaning off process. But
00:38:16
Speaker
Yeah, it's just cool to get to a point where I don't need it anymore. It was very helpful for me. I'm not against medicine whatsoever if you need it long, long term.
Healing and Self-Trust
00:38:28
Speaker
But for me, it was a very helpful tool for a time and now I'm transitioning off of it. I don't know. It's just cool to think about how much I've grown in that area. I can inhabit my body again. I know, right? Yeah. What excites me too is I'd love to think about what does that look like 10 years from now.
00:38:45
Speaker
Yeah, right. Like, you've had all these experiences, you've gotten to use this tool to kind of help you get back into a place where you can handle some of it on your own. You've grown this much in this little amount of time. What does that look like in 10 years, right? It kind of blows my mind. It's awesome. Yeah, I'm excited for you. Thank you. But
00:39:10
Speaker
I interrupted your story for there. Oh, no, it's okay. Listen, I am all about the important rabbit trails here. Had a few of them now and they've all been wonderful. So I welcome it. I'm convinced we're all like this because that's how sermons are. That's true. And we learned it. Yeah. Oh my gosh. Another connection. It's all there.
00:39:38
Speaker
So I think it was in late March I got surgery to remove the cancer in my life because the MRI showed that it had not spread, which honestly was miraculous. Whether you believe in miracles or not, I don't even know if I do, but it felt like a miracle that it hadn't spread and it was such an aggressive type of cancer.
00:39:58
Speaker
So got the surgery. I was freaking rejoicing. I was like, God is good. Yeah, that was my mindset. But because it was in my leg, I like couldn't walk for at least a month. Like they took a big old chunk out of my thigh. And so I was kind of out of commission for a bit, which worked out really well because that meant I got to take a break from playing music at church. Wow. All you have to do is not be able to walk. Yes, you can have a break.
00:40:25
Speaker
All you gotta do is get a giant chunk removed from some part of your body and then you can take a break. You can have two weeks. That's it. That's it.
00:40:37
Speaker
But so I took off the entire month of April and it was the best thing ever because that was like the thick of the pandemic. That was when everything was shut down in Michigan. Michigan was pretty strict with their shutdown. People had lots of problems with that, but I was like very happy about it. I didn't have to go anywhere. I could just sit and not walk on my, you know, gimpy leg. And it was great, great timing. I felt like I could
00:41:04
Speaker
finally slow down enough to listen to what my body was saying. And that was when my back problems started showing themselves, which have always been there. But when I finally sat down long enough to actually feel what was going on in my body, that's when I started to really notice them.
00:41:23
Speaker
And I could tell it was all in my upper back, which when you're playing keys or bass, because I was playing bass a lot at church too, you're hunched over a lot. And so it's easy to put way too much strain on your neck. And that's where all that was coming from. So I was like, Oh, maybe I should extend my break a little bit like
00:41:40
Speaker
I started going to a chiropractor, and that started to help a ton. And he was like, yeah, it would be really beneficial for you to just lay off of anything that involves you looking down for long periods of time. Get your spine straightened out a little bit. So I brought that to the staff, the worship staff who was above me. And at the end of April, they were like, no, we need you on keys. We have too many prayer meetings. We don't have enough keyboard players. And I'm like, OK, fine. Can we at least agree on a limit per week?
00:42:08
Speaker
Because by this point, they were doing at least one prayer meeting every weekday. And then there were the weekend services, which we had, I think, three on Sundays and one on Saturday. So it was just a ton. So they're like, OK, I guess we can compromise on that. How about like five? And then I brought it down to three and they finally agreed on three.
00:42:29
Speaker
But then they kept pushing those boundaries every week. I would hit my limit of three within a couple days. And then people would start asking me, Hey, can you play keys on my prayer set? And I'd be like, no, I like hit my limit. I'm sorry. And they'd be like, we can't find anyone else. Like we really need a keys player.
00:42:48
Speaker
And then they would pull out like the, it's your job card and play that. And so I would try to stand my ground, but I didn't know how to enforce boundaries. I didn't know how to say no at this point in my life. Well, they're not going to teach you that. Right. It was again, discouraged to say no to leaders. So I was constantly being pushed to like four or five times a week, which was an improvement over the eight that I had been playing before I took my break after my surgery.
00:43:16
Speaker
That's a lot. It is a lot. I think I counted out the hours one time and there were like over 20 hours I spent playing a week, which, you know, some people like do that for a living, but I didn't sign up for that. You know, it was a lot. So yeah, they were constantly pushing my boundaries, which like psychologically when your boundaries are being violated, anger is the result, anger and resentment.
00:43:39
Speaker
And I didn't know that at the time, but the anger and resentment was still starting to show itself. And so the tension that I had been feeling since the beginning of the year just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And I was like, again, blaming all of it on myself. Like, I shouldn't be feeling this way. I should be thankful that I have this position. I should be thankful that I get to do this every single day.
00:44:04
Speaker
You know, like I'm living the dream. Why am I not happy about it? Like that, that's wrong with me. You know, that's something that's wrong with me.
Facing Church Conflict
00:44:12
Speaker
That was my genuine mindset. Well, there's only room for positive emotions. Exactly. And if there are negative emotions, it means you like, aren't trusting God enough. You don't have enough faith. You're not willing enough to serve. Oh my gosh. I heard everything. Then they get forceful. Then it's, then it's, um, you're ungrateful, you're,
00:44:33
Speaker
that trusting in yourself is another really big one. Ungrateful is a huge one. Yeah. I remember hearing the term flesh thrown around a lot, like you're relying too much on your flesh and not on the spirit. Yes. That might be more of a charismatic church thing, but we relied on the spirit a whole lot. It's a fundamentalist Baptist thing too, I can tell you. Okay, yeah. It's probably pretty universal then. These tactics work. They do. Kept me in it for so long. So long.
00:45:03
Speaker
So long. And then to switch gears a little bit, but what happened next, I finally admitted to myself that I was attracted to women. That was big. No, no. Oh my gosh. That was like the ultimate sin in the book in this circle that I was in. So I confessed it. I'm using air quotes here.
00:45:23
Speaker
to my best friend who I lived with at the time. I still live with her, actually, which is great. Sidebar. But yeah, I can I confess that to her at the time that I was struggling with same-sex attraction. And she was wonderful about it, like totally accepting from the get-go. She was like, I kind of had a feeling like I was not wanting to push you to tell me anything. So I'm like glad you told me. That's right.
00:45:50
Speaker
She was amazing. First experience. Yeah. I definitely got lucky there. From there, that's when everything started going downhill. The shit really started hitting the fan because she and I were both involved in the worship team at this church. That's how we met.
00:46:08
Speaker
And so we were like, OK, if this like gets out, we might be ruined if this news gets out. Yeah. Because we live together like we don't want people to think that we're sinning or anything. So we wanted to get out in front of that and tell like one of our mentors that like, hey, Alana is attracted to women. We just want to let you know nothing's going on between us. Like it's all good. We're good. We just want to make you aware of it so that it doesn't get blown into this whole big thing.
00:46:37
Speaker
So what this mentor did was take it and blow it up into this whole big thing. Color me surprised. Right. So what he did was told everybody else on the staff and also like cornered me and my best friend in separate conversations, never together, and like tried to get us to move out, find different living situation.
00:47:03
Speaker
which this was when, because I was still very much in the mindset of like, my leaders are correct, I need to respect authority, like they hear from God, I don't. That was very much where I was at, but I started to feel like something's not right here. And so my first reaction was to be like, okay, like,
00:47:22
Speaker
Sure, maybe God wants me to live somewhere else where I'm not tempted, even though me and my best friend have never been attracted to each other. But I was gaslighting myself into thinking, yeah, I'm a sinful person, so I'll probably be tempted if I live with a woman. Because that's how that works. Right. God. It's weird how the rules of relationships apply to straight people, but totally different rules apply to
00:47:52
Speaker
Yeah, relationships like I'm sorry. I've never met a man who's attracted to every woman on earth. Like exactly such a weird thing. And that's how they treated me. They were like, we need to like sequester you because you're attracted to every woman that moves.
00:48:08
Speaker
It's like, no, the shame. Like, dude, I called it the shame storm. And I think that was a good word for it in hindsight. And that's why one of the first lyrics in the rewritten version of Come Thou Fount is, I was trapped in toxic shame because that was my entire existence at this point in the year of 2020. I was living and breathing shame.
00:48:31
Speaker
But I listened to my pastor, I was like, okay, I'll look for another living situation. But that would have meant we would have had to pay to break our lease. And we didn't have the money for that. And he didn't offer to help us with that. He was just like, okay, you need to move out need to break your lease. We're like, we don't have the money for that. It's like, well, you just you need to trust God. So you know that that whole deal. Well, if I wake up in the morning and my bank account magically has more money in it than today,
00:48:57
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, great. Praise God. Hallelujah. Yeah. Miracles happen.
00:49:03
Speaker
Here's where the universe really came in. And I personally call my version of divinity now the universe. I love it. It's very universal. But here's where I look back and I see the universe caught me and held me even though I didn't at all realize it. We couldn't find anything.
00:49:28
Speaker
We were trying to sublet my room maybe so that my roommate could get somebody else to move in and then I could go live with somebody else. I asked other friends. Nothing was panning out. Everyone I talked to, there were no openings.
00:49:44
Speaker
nothing was even remotely possible for us to move away from each other. And she and I were good. We had lots of heart to hearts around that time and made sure we had boundaries set up if we needed them. And we didn't even really need to have those conversations, but we had them anyway. And we've always just gone above and beyond in communicating with each other, which is why we are still such good friends to this day. So we just kind of forgot about it.
00:50:08
Speaker
We were like, we're going to live our lives. If something comes up and it feels right, then we'll move, but we're good. So we're not going to make it a priority anymore. Right. Cool. Great. We live our lives for another couple of months. I'm still on staff at this church. My back problems are getting worse and worse and worse, like to the point where I can't even breathe. It was so bad. And my chiropractor was like, Alana, something is stressing you out to the point where your body is locking itself up. Like you need to, I don't know, go to therapy, like
00:50:39
Speaker
You need to figure out what is going on because I can't even adjust your back right now. That is how locked up you are. And I was fighting against my body at this point instead of inhabiting it. I was like, my body is my enemy at this point. I need to push through it so that I can play more prayer sets. Play keys more. Because that's more important than you.
00:51:00
Speaker
Yeah, that is what I genuinely believed. So I remember this one specific worship prayer set thing that we were about to play. I got through rehearsal. My best friend was actually playing drums on the set with me, and we didn't play together super often, so it was always so fun when we could play together.
00:51:20
Speaker
And she could tell that I was feeling kind of off that day, and I was in tons of pain. Every time I inhaled, there was a very sharp pain in my upper back, and it was just horrible. So right after rehearsal, I was like, okay, you guys continue with the briefing or whatever. I'm just gonna lay on the floor real quick. I just don't wanna be distracting. Just wanna give you a heads up. The pastor, who didn't know me, it was some other campus pastor,
00:51:45
Speaker
immediately is like, oh, we're going to lay hands and pray for healing over you. And I was like, now you want to pray for me. Great. And at this point, they had prayed over me so many times for my back problems and nothing ever changed. What I knew with that at that point, too, that I just needed rest. I needed to not play every single day of my life. But that was never an option. It's wild to me thinking about the problem praying for you. Yeah.
00:52:22
Speaker
Oh my gosh, I will never forget the look on my best friend's face. Because she knew that I was getting really mad at that moment. Because I told them, I was like, no, I don't need prayer. I just need a second to lay down. That's all I need. But they still were insisting. And they were like, yell praying over me. And I was just laying there on the floor, very vulnerable. I couldn't escape. They were surrounding me and touching me. And of course, they ended their prayer. And they were like, so how do you feel? And I was like, the same. Let's go.
00:52:34
Speaker
right? Yeah, the problem was praying that you would figure out the problem. Yeah.
00:52:52
Speaker
Good for you. Oh, man. Yeah. So I think at this point, I was I was finally done. And that's around the time that I put in my two week notice. And I was like, I've I need to at least give my body a break. So I'm almost to the end of the craziness here. Thank God.
00:53:12
Speaker
So at my meeting to discuss the transition off the staff and training a new person, the mentor that I told originally that I was attracted to women and my supervisor, so there were two guys there, we had a meeting to discuss all that practical stuff. Very practical, normal exit interview type thing. And then they take this left turn at the end of our conversation about job-related stuff and say, so have you moved into a different apartment yet?
00:53:41
Speaker
Wow. And I just froze. I was like, this hasn't even been on my mind. For this thing. Exactly. This other pastor who's in the room, my supervisor didn't know about all of the stuff that had gone on. So I felt very cornered. This mentor just brought in the pastor
00:54:00
Speaker
just for more backup. That's very much how I felt and I felt really small. And I just started crying because that's how I respond to intense stress when I can't just flee. So I started crying and the mentor took that as, oh yes, you are realizing deep truths right now. That is why you are crying. And so he very sternly told me that I needed to set a date
00:54:24
Speaker
That we would be moved out by because we cannot live together and I was like, but we're fine Like nothing's happening between us
00:54:34
Speaker
It's not your business anyway. And he had none of that. I was just, I left the meeting crying. And he also told me like, do not tell Liv that we talked about this. Liv is my best friend's name. Yeah. He said, don't tell Liv that we talked about this. We are going to have a separate conversation with her. Okay. We don't, big red flags. Huge red flags. And I was driving home. I was like, I really like,
00:54:59
Speaker
I wanna honor my leaders, like I have done such a good job of doing, but I think this is the final straw for me. So I got home, I was crying, I told her everything. Yes!
00:55:11
Speaker
I told her everything and she was like, let the fuck. Good. So long story short, just to wrap this up, I went back and forth about whether I should leave this church because I genuinely believed it was like my future to be at this church forever. Yeah.
00:55:32
Speaker
So that was really hard for me.
Leaving the Church
00:55:34
Speaker
And I also felt like I wasn't able to make my own decision, which is why I ended up reaching out to my dad, like I said earlier, and asking him for advice. I also asked like 20 other people in my life for advice. And I think it's Glennon Doyle. I don't know if you've read her book. Oh, yeah, it is. Oh, my gosh. Any listeners who have not read Untamed by Glennon Doyle freaking read it right now. It changed my freaking life in the bookshop. Get it.
00:55:57
Speaker
Perfect. But one thing that she writes in there is that she asked everyone except for herself. Yes. Whether she should like leave her then husband at the time. Like that was her context. And when I read that line in that book, I think it was around the time that I was trying to make this decision and I was like, I've never even asked myself what I want to do. What feels right to me? Yeah.
00:56:20
Speaker
And then I realized, especially after having that conversation with my dad where the Bible literally tells you to trust yourself, I was like, I can trust myself to govern my own life. And that was mind blowing to me. And so I left. Not only can you, you know better than anybody else.
00:56:44
Speaker
what feels right to you. Yeah, because none of these people are me. That's right. Yeah, so I left. And once I was off staff and had played my last service, I went back one time just to give it a shot, didn't feel right, left halfway through service and never went back. Fuck yes.
00:57:07
Speaker
Yes, I this is the best possible outcome. I just love that you because this happened to me too. Like you try and you try to work within the confines of it as much as you can because you work
00:57:23
Speaker
And then the moment that you finally realize that it's never going to work with them, you have to stand up for yourself. It's the most freeing moment. It's somehow the best and worst thing that ever happened to you at the same time. I can't explain that feeling.
00:57:38
Speaker
It was scary as fuck, dude. It was the scariest thing I've ever done in my entire life. So when people reach out to me and say like, hey, I'm still in the middle of it. So like, I don't really know what to do. Like I, I really want to like share your content. And I'm like, no pressure. Like I have been there, you know, like I just get it. And I wish I could just take the people out with my own two hands and get them out because it is so hard to get yourself out of there.
00:58:08
Speaker
It's so hard, but the great thing about coming to it on your own terms is that you know you did it for yourself and you know that nobody else influenced that decision. Yeah. It's important. For me, it was the first thing I can now point back to and say, I trusted myself in that moment and it was like the best outcome.
00:58:31
Speaker
the best outcome.
Creating and Sharing True Colors
00:58:33
Speaker
Because now you're taking those experiences and you're taking this really challenging thing you're going through and you're using it to put things out there that are healing to people going through similar things.
00:58:50
Speaker
is the most rewarding experience to create community around it, community that's focused on the very things we were taught not to do, trusting yourself, loving yourself.
00:59:04
Speaker
working on your self-worth, listening to your body, all of these things that are ingrained out, like pushed out of you. You're bringing back in with other people. That's powerful. I just love it. And you're doing it with the thing that you were probably most scared you were going to lose, right? The music, this thing that you love and have dedicated so much of your time and your life to. Now it's like,
00:59:31
Speaker
You're doing more right now than you ever did in a prayer service. That is so true, dude. Isn't it? It doesn't feel badass. It does. Yeah, it feels fucking badass. And what's crazy to me too is I did give up music because I couldn't touch a piano after I left the church. It was so painful for me to even try, which was so heartbreaking because I remember when I was younger, I was like, if I wasn't a musician,
00:59:57
Speaker
I like don't think I would have any worth in the world, which is like, you know, so sad that I thought that way. But it was genuinely my sense of self worth was my music for so long. And then I kind of was forced to give that up because it was just too painful for me. And so I took like a good two and a half years at least without any music at all. I don't remember if I told you that ever. No, no, I didn't know that. And so is rewriting The Sims, is this your first like
01:00:28
Speaker
jump back in. It's my first like official jump back in. Way to come back with a bang. I know.
01:00:36
Speaker
It kind of just happened to me if I'm honest. It's great. I would love to like share the story of like that first time that I rewrote that verse too. But I was dating someone last year, so in 2022, and then we broke up like shortly after New Year's this year. And that was when I started to kind of play a little bit of my guitar again, but it still felt weird. And then
01:01:02
Speaker
I think that's when it happened. Literally, it was pretty much my first jump back into playing music again, which is crazy to think about. That's amazing. I just think it's great that when you put yourself out there in vulnerable and honest ways, the universe meets you where you are. That's so true. It's hella vulnerable, dude. It is. It's really scary.
01:01:26
Speaker
Yeah, so the way that it happened was I was so depressed for a couple weeks in February this year. And I've had bouts of depression throughout my life, especially when I was a teenager. I'm familiar with it. And
01:01:44
Speaker
my way of getting out of it in the past was always to sit down and play and sing worship music. There were specific songs I would always go to that would help lift my mood and my spirits a little bit. That was just my tried and true method. In this depressed time in February, I was super stressed out too and so I didn't have a lot of energy to try anything else and I sat at my keyboard
01:02:10
Speaker
And I hated it. Like I just looked at it and I was like, fuck you, keyboard, like. But I needed that release of singing worship music over myself, but I didn't believe the lyrics anymore. And so it just felt triggering and gross. And so I didn't know what to do. And so that just made me angry. And then I don't know how I got the idea. I think I was literally like I stormed out of the room. I got up.
01:02:36
Speaker
I was like about to go to the bathroom or something and I was just humming the melody of the the old come that found of every blessing him and I was like mad that I couldn't sing that because it was like one of my favorite melodies and then I was like you know what
01:02:51
Speaker
I'm just gonna make my own lyrics to this thing. And you did? I did. The first line I wrote was, uh, now I'm finding my two colors. And I was like, that is so sick. Like I immediately started bawling as soon as I sang that line. And I was like, wow. I always started bawling when I heard it. So yeah, I get it. We had the same experience. We did.
01:03:15
Speaker
Yeah, so I was like, Oh, wow, I'm actually feeling something for the first time in weeks here. So I ran back to my piano and I started just rewriting the whole verse. And it's the verse that you guys are now familiar with. And you hear at the beginning of your podcast.
01:03:30
Speaker
And then I just decided to post it because I have a few friends on TikTok that I knew would appreciate it, like a deconstructed version of an old song. And then it blew up. It did. Did not foresee that happening, but I just like love seeing how it's resonating with people. It is my favorite thing ever to hear people's stories in the comments.
01:03:51
Speaker
And like I see myself in so many of the commenters too saying like, I thought I was the only one. And this helps me feel things. And like, this is healing something in me that I didn't know needed to be healed. I was like, yes, I understand all of you. I get it. Yeah, that's the story. I love it. I love it. What was it like the first time a church wanted to sing?
01:04:15
Speaker
your rewritten version. Oh, wow. So the way it happened was a church just did it without asking me, which like I always love when people ask permission, but like it's not necessary. It's a hymn, like use it if you want to. But so this church just like used it. And this is actually how I met the girl that I co-wrote the rest of the verses with.
01:04:40
Speaker
Actually, cool. This girl, her name's Ashley White. You all will be familiar with her because she's going to be singing lead on it in the version that I'm releasing. I know. I'm so excited. Her voice is so gorgeous. But yeah, so she messaged me on Instagram just out of the blue and was like, hey, so I go to this progressive church in Nashville and we just sang like the verse that you wrote on TikTok. Like, do you want to see a video of it? And I was like, oh, my gosh. Yes.
01:05:10
Speaker
Because I was like, I didn't know how I felt about progressive churches. I didn't really think about it before this point. But I was like, I just want to see people singing this song together because I miss that. So I saw the video. I actually reposted it on my TikTok that day that she sent it to me because I was like crying. It was so beautiful. And so that was kind of my introduction into churches wanting to use it. And I was honored, truly just honored.
01:05:39
Speaker
And I'm at a point in my deconstruction where I can respect all other belief systems as long as they're not harming anyone or being disrespectful. And most of the progressive Christians I have met are very respectful and very open to other viewpoints. And so when people ask me if they can use my song in their church, I'm like, absolutely, go for it.
01:06:01
Speaker
I am all for that. And so I actually just led the song at another progressive church here in Nashville a few weeks ago and seeing like the actual visual healing on people's faces in the room as I was singing with them was such a profoundly like crazy thing to me.
01:06:25
Speaker
Like I feel like, yes, I wrote these words, but at the same time they were for me as well, like my own healing journey. And they helped lift me out of a pretty dark, depressy time.
01:06:38
Speaker
So to see a very similar good response from people just makes me feel like one with them, you know? It's like a very communal, unifying experience, whether you believe one thing or another. You can see it in people regardless, you know? It is crazy. It's such an incredible feeling to be creating a community around healing, isn't it?
01:07:03
Speaker
Yeah, it's really special. Like it's an honor. Yeah, it really is. And I just love that there's so many of us deconstructing openly now and everyone has their thing that they're bringing to the table, whether it's music or podcasts or theological breakdowns or even just talking about things from their perspective openly. It's pretty amazing to see it bring us together in our own sort of community.
01:07:29
Speaker
Yeah, it's freaking cool. It's super cool. And you know what it reminds me of? What? The body of Christ. Oh, my God. Yeah. Yeah. Like how the church teaches that we're all full circle.
Community and Inclusivity
01:07:44
Speaker
Yeah. How the church teaches that we're all different parts of the same body, this one body. And we each play a different role that makes that body work. Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's like a big puzzle. And I don't know. I see it like that.
01:07:59
Speaker
It's like this piece over here and then there's this piece over here. I fall in somewhere over here and then this person's doing a podcast over here and then that's a piece there and together. It's just this big movement, this beautiful new thing, kind of like a tapestry I like to think of it as. I don't know, it's this whole community now. I was thinking about that too. Yeah, that's a really good analogy. I really like that. You know what I like about this body better than the body of Christ though? What?
01:08:27
Speaker
People are getting to choose the part they want based on who they are and who they know themselves to be instead of the church deciding for them. And I think it's so much cooler that way because people are getting to be themselves and like run with it naturally instead of like being assigned a role by the church that maybe they don't actually fit into or that doesn't fit the narrative or like the hierarchy or whatever.
01:08:55
Speaker
And it's not out of obligation. Right. Yeah. Right. Right. I think it's so much cooler that way. Yeah, I agree. Big time.
01:09:03
Speaker
All right. So, okay. I want to get us back on track really quick. You have just released True Colors as a single, right? Yep. So excited. Okay. So I have seen several of my friends post a music video and I'm so excited. Yeah. Yeah. Like a ton of them. And they'll like reach out to me and be like, I just love it. This is the intro to the podcast.
01:09:25
Speaker
Yes, everyone that I know like in this circle absolutely loves you and they're super excited that this has come out and then they get to like save it to their playlist and I put it in the forthcoming former faithful jams Spotify playlist. I love that. Yeah, yeah, it's really good. It's certainly been on repeat in my earbuds lately.
01:09:47
Speaker
I'm honored, honored to hear that. Good, I'm glad. And I'm just, I'm glad that it's out because I used to go back to the TikToks and just replay them over and over. And so I like that there's like a full version and I really loved Ashley's voice on it too. She's got a really killer voice. I know, right? It just seemed so perfect. Like as soon as I heard her saying, I was like, that's it, that's the sound I want. There it is. I think you picked a perfect one. It sounds really, really good.
01:10:15
Speaker
And so where all is it? Where can people find it? And how can they like support your further musical release journey? So it's out on everything. So any streaming service or platform you listen to, Spotify, Apple Music, et cetera, the best way to support me is to buy it on Bandcamp. So if you go to Alana Sabatini.bandcamp.com, the link is also in my socials, which, you know, show notes. Show notes.
01:10:43
Speaker
You can either pay the dollar, which, you know, it's just like iTunes, it'll just cost dollar for the song, but you can also choose to pay more if you want to, if you can. That money goes directly to me, unlike the major like iTunes stores and stuff, which goes through like a billion different third parties before a small fraction of it gets to me. So that's the best way to support me financially. And you also get the song. I also have some like sheet music and chord sheets and stuff on Bandcamp as well. So
01:11:10
Speaker
If you want to play it in your progressive church or group or you just want to learn it, I have all that stuff on there as well. So it's a cool little resource. Super cool. I love that. I've really enjoyed seeing the videos of churches doing it. I know. It's so cool. I know we were just talking about that earlier, but I just like they keep coming up and it's so amazing. So this puts us at the point in the episode.
01:11:32
Speaker
that I love and hate because it means it's coming to an end. But I always love to hear people's answers because they're so unique, even if they are similar in like their content. And I just they just it just always does it for me. So I have two questions that I ask every guest to close out the episode. And the first one is, what is something you see clearly now that you didn't see before when you were the most immersed in your faith?
Embracing New Beliefs
01:12:00
Speaker
So for the first time, I really believe now that humans are innately good. And it almost sits weird for me to say that out loud, because that's the exact opposite of what I was conditioned to believe.
01:12:17
Speaker
And there are obviously evil people in the world, and there's bad things that happen. Trauma and illness and different things can... I don't know the right words for it. But when you look at a little human baby, that's good. And I see so much beauty in every single human that I meet these days, no matter if I get along with them or not. There's just something in there.
01:12:41
Speaker
At its core, there's beauty, and that is true. And then if it's true, it's true of myself as well. I am innately good. That's right. Preach. And that's just an undeniable truth to me now. And it doesn't just mean, hey, have no boundaries, trust everyone, because everyone's good. That's not at all what I'm saying. Stuff happens, whatever. That's what I was saying earlier.
01:13:07
Speaker
I don't know. There's just there's hope and potential for everyone because it's already in them. I don't know. So that's been like a huge thing for me because if humans are good, then I am good and I have nothing to be ashamed of in my existence.
01:13:22
Speaker
Yes, I love that. And I especially love this because it reminds me of what the therapist that I had on a former episode said. When I asked her what's the thing she wished her religious trauma patients knew, she says that she wished they knew that they were fundamentally good. Because so many of them don't understand that, they haven't internalized that. So I just think that's really special. Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah.
01:13:48
Speaker
Okay, and our last question of the episode is, what have been some of your greatest moments of joy in rebuilding your life post-faithfulness? Oh, heck yeah. Okay. Yeah, I love this question. That's my favorite.
01:14:06
Speaker
First and foremost, dating a woman for the first time, feeling attraction for the first time in my entire life. Get it. That was a definite moment of joy. Good. I loved having Sunday mornings off, just being able to invest in myself, have a slow morning. Those are rare enough in this capitalistic world that we live in. No kidding.
01:14:29
Speaker
So I just huge, huge amount of joy just having to like have a cup of coffee in the morning and, you know, sitting on my porch, not really having anything to do instead of busting my butt. And yeah, and then and then the last thing would be just trusting myself. Like that's brought the most amount of joy. It's just like being able to rest in my decisions and what I want to do with my morning, even like I can trust myself with that too.
01:14:55
Speaker
I love that so much. That's perfect. It's really beautiful because I think that's something that it takes so many of us a long time to learn, even if we don't have the church, you know, bringing us down. But I think when you add that in, it can sometimes be a little harder and take a little longer. So I'm glad that you're doing that and that you're kind of like showing the rest of us what it looks like to do that too. That's super badass of you, Alana.
01:15:22
Speaker
Thank you. It's definitely a journey, like a process. I don't know. It's a long road that I think I'm never going to fully make it to the point where I 100,000% trust myself, but that's okay. There's just little moments of improvement and progress.
01:15:42
Speaker
I don't know. I'm more aware of it and that's a huge thing to me. I chose to trust myself in this little decision here where I wouldn't have in years past. Yeah. I saw something recently. There's a therapist on Instagram that I saw that she's calling those glimmers.
01:16:00
Speaker
So they're the opposite of triggers.
Personal Growth and Gratitude
01:16:03
Speaker
They're like little moments that remind you of how far you've come and little moments that remind you of how you're changing what you're doing. And I thought that was the sweetest thing in the world. And I thought about that a lot. I know.
01:16:15
Speaker
Oh, I loved it. I thought it was really sweet. So I'm glad you're having lots of glimmer moments. I am. And they certainly are helping you shine. Yeah. Alana, thank you so much for being on this episode today. It was such a pleasure to have you. And I just am so glad that I randomly messaged you on TikTok one day and that you didn't think I was crazy and that you're here.
01:16:41
Speaker
Thank you so much. It was a pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to this episode and being on this journey with me. You can find resources and links in the show notes. If you're enjoying the show, please subscribe, rate, and review, and follow along on social media to help us grow.
01:17:06
Speaker
Now I See is independently funded by me. If you'd like to help support the show, you can donate directly or purchase a merch item on the website. Music for this episode was made by Alana Sabatini, a former faithful and talented musician. And finally, this podcast is made possible by the incredible team at Softer Sounds, a feminist podcast studio for entrepreneurs and creatives providing technical skill with tender support.