The documentary series I took part in about growing up in The Children of God cult is now out on @discoveryplusuk!
I am proud to stand by these women who are speaking out and telling the world about their stories and their life. This was not easy. But it was necessary.
I am honored to be a part of this documentary, and I hope that sharing my story you can see that there is light after darkness and joy, purpose, power and pleasure after pain.
My past does not define me, but my story is what made me the person I am today, someone who is kind, caring, loyal, joyful, alive, vibrant, and in love with life!
I'm not a survivor, I'm a thriver. Follow me and see for yourself 💜🧚✨
The Power and Symbolism of Blood and Children
Talking about the symbolism of blood, children, sacrifice, and why it matters
I recently talked about Nas X and his “Satan shoe” online. There was so much public & private engagement from post that I thought I'd follow up with another one to talk specifically about the symbolism of this shoe and what it represents.
I'm not religious, but I know everything around us has meaning & symbols. We take on the energy of what we surround ourselves with the most. Wearing a devil shoe with a drop of human blood has far more meaning than being edgy.
Blood Significance
There is a strong symbolic link between blood, life and death. Blood is holy and sacred. It's lifeforce, magic, one of the most powerful things on this earth. Blood represents the soul, your sovereignty and binding one person to another. Blood rituals have existed since the beginning of time.
In the Bible, blood symbolizes sacrifice, eternal life & the Divine. Self flagulation to draw blood for the cleansing of sins is used by certain Muslim groups. Pagan, Druid, Greek, Maya, and Olmec all used blood sacrifice and rituals in some form. Various African tribes still perform blood sacrifice to this day.
Blood magic includes blessings, curses, binding/unbinding, repenting from sins & more. Blood sacrifice is typically associated with bodily harm (cutting or killing) and could be categorized as black magic. Blood magic without bodily harm (menstrual blood) is used for selfless purposes like healing, union, blessings, and protection. This is known as white magic.
Black or dark magic is destructive and vindictive, used selfishly usually against another. The representation of Satan throughout history is selfishness, destructiveness, vindictiveness, cruelty, pain...the same things black magic represents.
If blood is in a satan shoe, what does that represent and those walking around wearing it? The significance of blood in a shoe that comes in a box with images of dead children in grotesque form is a lot more sinister than self expression, and it’s important to be aware of that.
Child Sacrifice
Another important topic regarding the shoe and the symbolism, are the images of child sacrifice.
Child sacrifice (trigger warning)
Throughout history, children have been used as pawns for control or to please a jealous God. Children are born pure, untainted & unspoiled by the evils of the world. This gives them appeal for darker forces.
Child sacrifice was used to please deities, gods, beings, powerful rulers conquerors after war. The idea behind child sacrifice is that giving up the most precious thing in life, your child, proves your loyalty to another and essentially, saves yourself from a similar fate.
Satanic rituals are known to include child sacrifice. Satanic cults and ritual abuse has been well documented in the US, with the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crimes (FBI) stating that victims in these cases report "ceremonies, chanting, robes and costumes, drugs, use of urine and feces, animal sacrifice, torture, abduction, mutilation, murder, and even cannibalism and vampirism."
In the Journal of American Culture, a woman said she was held in a Satanic cult where her parents were members, forcibly impregnated and held captive in order to sacrifice her child to satan when it was born.
Taking an innocent child's life to satiate a god, your own power or for Satanic rituals is 100% pure evil. The inside of the Satanic shoe box contains images of dead children hanging upside down with snakes going in between their bodies (snakes have significance too), surrounded by black horned demons and cradled by a winged skeleton demon.
None of this is harmless dress up. None of this is just entertainment and shock value. The images are intentional & symbolic. None of it represents good, truth, love, kindness, compassion, joy, light, peace, or anything positive in any way.
Whether you are religious or not, wearing shoes that represent pain, suffering, death, cruelty, selfishness and harm exposes us to those traits & energies. This numbs us to the issues going on in our country when these traits are presented as cool and expressive.
It is possible to express yourself and deliver powerful messages without embodying evil. I do it all the time.
Survivor's Guilt and PTSD...is it real?
Understanding the link between survivor’s guilt, PTSD, and when others reinforce the beliefs in you
I read a great blog post from Amen University where I got my Brain Health Coaching certification from. In it, it talks about survivor’s guilt and what people go through after coming out of a tragic experience better than others.
According to Amen University, survivor’s guilt is often considered a serious symptom of PTSD. They say:
“While not everyone who endures a traumatic event will develop PTSD, some research estimates that as many as 90% of people who lived through events where others died experience feelings of guilt. They may question their own survival and feel a sense of responsibility for what happened:
Why did my buddy get killed, but not me?
Why did I run away from it?
Why didn’t I do more to save others?
What could I have done to prevent this tragedy?”
This one hits home to me all the time and really for anyone who has survived a tragic event when others didn't, or your experiences were different than others who survived the same tragedy.
For my personal experience growing up in the cult, I'm constantly attacked and demonized for talking about my experiences, sometimes from people very close to me. The accusations are always the same:
"You didn't have it as bad as me!" (indicating my trauma and experiences don't count because theirs were "worse" in their mind)
"You're a liar!" (indicating because my experiences were different, then I certainly must be lying)
"You're embellishing!" (exaggerating my trauma to make is seem worse, but it can't be worse, cause theirs is worse)
"You're a narcissist!" (indicating that because I'm talking about myself, I must not care about anyone else. Hint for this one: only narcissists call other people narcissists)
These words are not only deeply harmful to survivors but dangers and divisive. Rather than supporting those who are coming out to speak about their experiences, we're quick to blame, point the finger, and shut them down.
I was attacked so much from this that I actually began to believe it. This led to so much guilt that I had nothing to complain about because "so and so had it worse than me". This led me down a dark path of shame, silence, depression, and repressed anger.
Now that I'm speaking up about my life, these attacks are old news and SO 2019. But survivors guilt is real, ya'll. From war, to abuse, to car wrecks, to natural disasters, we CANNOT control what happens in our life or how we survive (or don't survive) it.
This article from Amen Clinics explains the link to survivor's guilt and PTSD, the common symptoms and how to heal from it. This was key in my path to recovery, and I know it can help others.
https://www.amenclinics.com/blog/understanding-the-relationship-between-survivors-guilt-and-ptsd/
Society's skewed version of sexuality
I'm seeing a lot of comments on social media that are, surprisingly but also maybe not surprisingly--almost mocking the fact that Netflix was indicted by the grand jury in Texas for the lewd depiction of children in the show Cuties. People are saying it's not that bad, this is all due to conspiracy theorists and getting blown way out of proportion.
Interestingly enough, some of these people are the ones criticizing me and others for having nudity on their page. Let's just pause for a sec at these ridiculous contradictions and the hypocrisy of it all...
Newsflash! The sexualization of children is NOT normal. Images and film depicting "cute kids" in "cute outfits", shaking their butts and twerking on stage at 9 years old is NOT ok and there are NO circumstances where this is appropriate.
Guess what is normal? A 37 yr old woman who knows herself, doesn't stand for people's bullshit, who is proud of & celebrates her body in its natural form, who has gone through horrendous amounts of sexual abuse and trauma, only to come out the other side perfectly healed with a healthy sense of sexuality, showing off her body in an artful way on social media, just the way she wants to. Shocking? Maybe to some, but certainly not wrong.
I can't believe the state of the world sometimes and its skewed view on sexuality. How anyone can think that a grown woman posting beautiful photos on social media is not OK, while a disgusting show on Netflix with underage twerking children is fine, is beyond me. Something normal and natural like images of women showing their bodies or nursing their children, are censored online all the time, while the sexualization of children remains all over TV and Social Media. Guys, we can do so much better as a nation and so much better together.
Your reaction to other people's actions and what they're doing with their lives says far more about you than the other person. I would suggest we all examine our morals, our beliefs, and our thoughts to see where they are coming from and how they are being influenced. What you find may surprise you.
#nudaisnormal #nakedinnature #sereneearth #skewedperspective #cancelcuties #childabuseawareness #bodybyhiking
"Evil always looks good"
Below is a video from my YouTube channel where I talk about the arrest of Peter Daglish, listening to your intuition and the importance of doing your research! Things are not always as they seem.
One ring to rule them all… My child bride cult ring.
I was born as a child celebrity in the cult founder David Berg’s compound. He named me, wrote stories about me and I grew up basically promised to him from birth.
At 3 I was taken to David Berg by my own mother and presented as his child bride. Berg gave me a heart shaped ring way too big for my 3 yr old finger. He wrapped tape around the band until it fit, saying the ring was big on purpose so I could wear it forever. I still have the ring to this day and it fits on my pinkie finger.
That is sick. He put that much thought into how he could possess me for the rest of my life, and how he could ensure that the ring would fit me through adulthood. I still have it, and it still does.
The first photo at the top of the page is me wearing that ring as an adult.
Berg systematically broke down children, abused and trafficked them, then had his followers do the same. This was his way to control, a way to satiate his perverted mind that had also been control and abused as a child himself, by his own nanny. His mind was so far gone and so fucked up that he continued to inflict pain on thousands of people, the way pain was inflicted on him in his childhood.
What’s that saying again…hurt people hurt people, healed people heal people.
I still have the ring, yes. I keep in my possession, no one will ever know where, I don’t wear it but I also don’t feel the need to burn it. This ring is part of my story now, it’s part of my power and part of my path. It’s not Berg’s, and it never will be.
In the video on my previous post, I talk about being trafficked as a child in the infamous sex cult The Children of God, aka The Family.
Yes, trafficking is a harsh word. We think of children being grabbed off the street and chained to a bed and all kinds of horrible things happening to them. But if you look at the definition of child trafficking online, it paints a different picture.
The definition of child trafficking is the illegal movement of children for forced labor or sexual exploitation.
When I first read this definition, I was floored, because that literally described my life. If I could sum up my life in one sentence, it would literally be that.
So, I embarked on an even deeper healing journey, to learn more about child trafficking and all its nuances that we typically wouldn’t associate it with. Since then, I’ve talked to many of my fellow survivors about our childhood, and we’ve all slowly come to terms with the fact that yes, we were in fact, trafficked. It’s a hard pill to swallow at first, but something important when to acknowledge about our lives.
Photo info:
To the left is a photO of me at two years old, shortly before I received the ring on my 3rd birthday.
Below, you can see a photo of Berg, laying a hand on my pregnant mother’s belly, and inside that belly is me.
Second to the bottom is a picture of Berg’s cousin Mary Dear. He wrote a personal note to my mother about naming me after his cousin he was in love with. Mary Dear became my celebrity cult name and it’s in the cult publications.
A recent photo of me now, living life to the fullest and loving every second
Child trafficking is not always forcibly grabbing someone off the street, throwing them into a van and hiding them in a warehouse. Most of the time it’s far more covert and insidious. It’s low income families exchanging sexual favors for money. It’s sex cults who separate families & travel in the middle of the night to escape authorities looking for them. It’s the family down the street with the creepy uncle who always comes by when the parents are away but the kids are home. Or the family friend who brings money for the kids and the parents let them have special play time with. Or the masked kid walking down the street with the man grabbing their arm just a bit too forcefully.
These things are happening today all around us. Maybe to you or someone you know. This is a pandemic in our country of massive proportions and it’s only getting worse through generations. Research child trafficking in your area. The results may shock you.