Episode 9: Spiritual Abuse : The Experience

It’s difficult to describe what happens in Spiritual Abuse. With guest
Julie Spearing.

In this episode, I interview my sister, Julie Spearing, current resident of Atlanta, Georgia and also one of my favorite people in the whole world. If you haven’t listened to Episode 8 - Spiritual Abuse: the System where I interview my brother Caleb Spearing, I encourage you to listen to that episode first.

What’s tricky about understanding Spiritual Abuse, is a lot of the examples smack of familiar dysfunction you might experience in any family, or working in any organization.

For example, someone might be trying to explain how a spiritual leader was manipulative and abusive. Some of that leader’s behavior, might just sound like “normal” disfunction, and it might be easy for us to resonate, and when we do, we immediately dismiss the very dark and sinister parts of the story by latching on to the parts that sound familiar.

There are two problems with this. First, we should never normalize disfunction. It’s never okay for a boss to mistreat an employee, no matter how common it is. It’s never okay for a parent to maliciously manipulate their child, no matter how common it is.

Second, the insidiousness of Spiritual Abuse is, a lot of the “normal” behaviors are very often a smokescreen for the dark and sinister realm of real long-lasting damage.

This podcast supports Tears of Eden, a community and resource for those in the aftermath of Spiritual Abuse.

Thinking Music by Kevin MacLeod

Link: https://incompetech.filmmusic.io/song/4522-thinking-music

License: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/