My Recovery Story

I grew up in a cult.

The Mission: PERFECTION. 😇

Armageddon was RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER and I had to be ready for Jehovah's wrath unless I wanted to suffer a gruesome and violent death. Only the purest of heart, thought and actions (and naturally the most pious Witnesses) would make it out alive. 

The Mission: FAILED. ❌ ❌ ❌

My personal apocalyspe: the Kingdom Hall, Friday night meeting announcements, right after the Bible study and practice preaching sessions. An Elder delivered a monotone, 5-word, life-changing judgment. “Sister Dawn has been disfellowshipped.”

In that moment, I lost everyone I loved and considered family. They were forbidden to talk to me, look at me, even think about me. I was 19 years old. 

I was born into the organization, so I didn't have a support structure outside of Jehovah's Witnesses. I was totally unprepared for life "in the world"-- emotionally, mentally or physically.  (I had been living with a Jehovah's Witness "sister" and had no money.) Spiritually I was dead, or so they said. It definitely felt like it! The betrayal and overwhelming grief and shame cut deep into my soul. I went numb. I partied hard. I gained 100 pounds that year and didn’t even notice. 

I spent my twenties desparately trying to find someone to love me and a place to call home. Ironically, I felt the most connected when I was traveling. I loved the feeling of going somewhere where no one knew me or my past. Exploring the world was never an option for me as a kid, unless I married a brother who dreamed of being missionary. Seeing the world on my terms was the closest thing to freedom I'd ever felt and I had sacrificed so much for it. 

I moved to Italy after college. Living the la vita bella was a fresh start. Trying to assimilate and learn Italian was all consuming. For the first time I had enough distance from my past to see new possibilities for my future. Maybe I wasn't the misfit fat poor kid that had been abandoned by her family and cast out of Jehovah's Witnesses. Maybe I was capable of something different. Something beautiful. 

I kept moving around and a decade later my heart was called to India. While on an epic 5-week journey, I started receiving signs and messages that I was a healer. It started with a dream, and then an Ayurvedic palm reader. We traveled from Kerala to Delhi, and in every city the same message showed up in different and surprising ways. Ashrams, astrologers, every random book I picked up (there was a lot of time on the road!) and even bang lassis in Pushkar kept leading me the same thing: that God is love, that I am love, and my purpose was to heal myself and others. 

I couldn’t wrap my brain around any of this-- I felt so broken inside. Me a healer?? You must be joking, have you seen the hot mess that is my life? My weight? My trail of heartbreak?  My waitress job? And this God business... no thanks. I had been burned by that one. God had created a whole lot of pain for me-- from my parents' divorce (my dad was Catholic) to my own mother refusing to speak to me. Screw God! 🖕😡🖕

(Side note: I still feel my nervous system activate when people start talking about God. It’s incredibly rare that I use the word. I will say the Divine or Source Energy or All That Is--all vague and expansive at the same time!--but that’s about as comfortable as I get with the whole G-O-D thing. Except the bumper stickers that say God is dog spelled backwards. So cheeky! 😄)

Even though I didn't understand it, something was lit inside of me in India. So cliche, I know. When I got home, I dove into new age spirituality. I took intuitive development classes. I read the monthly astrology. I bought crystals, goddess cards, tried to meditate (rather unsuccessfully) and understand the chakras (also difficult). I entertained the idea that I might have spirit guides, that perhaps there was a greater purpose to my life and that we could actually create our reality. Religion had let me down. Maybe there was something to this new way of seeing the world. 

I was scared out of my pants.  The stern voices from my childhood said this was the work of the devil! But my heart kept pulling me forward and I kept following it. I was curious about everything. The more I exposed myself to new ideas, the more positive I felt about my life.  I decided to take a Reiki healing class and learned The Emotional Freedom Technique (also known as Tapping). 

More than anything, I wanted to be free.

For many years, all I did was focus on healing myself.  Processing dense emotions. Creating a new truth for my life. Figuring out who I was and discovering parts of me I shut down to stay small and safe while a Jehovah's Witness. I started feeling like less of a victim and more empowered.

When I found the Akashic Records I knew I had found my heart's spiritual home.  I tuned into the important themes of my life. I slowly healed the abuse, neglect, and betrayal. I unraveled cult programming and negative self beliefs. With the support and love of my Akashic Beings of Light (yes, I did have guides!) I was able to put myself back together piece by piece and rebuild myself from the core. 

After a few years I started share the tools that had such a profound impact on my life. I started with Reiki, and then reading the Akashic Records for others. I paired it with a quantum healing modality I was studying at the time and wowza! Things took off. It turns out, I was a healer after all. 😊

I opened a community healing center. I started training new healers in Reiki and teaching people how to work with their soul's wisdom using the Akashic Records. I earned a Doctor of Divinity so I could better work with religious trauma and cult recovery. I know, it sounds funny right? But at that time religous trauma and cult awareness hadn't hit the mainstream yet. Very few people were talking about it, and hardly anyone was providing services for cult survivors. Even now, religious trauma is not formally recognized as a diagnosis in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. 

In more recent years, I started working more with the body, the concept of embodiment, and immersed myself in the world of somatic healing. I continue to grow, explore more facets myself, and release outdated ideas of who I am and what true healing means. Cult recovery is an ongoing thing. 

But the thing that I am most proud of is that I-- the poster child for disconnect-- learned how to come home to myself, despite the religious programming and everything I had been through.  That I kept my heart open to life and to love. That I continually find the sacred in everyday, in others and in my own being. 

People say that my gift is my ability to come from the heart

and showing others how to dismantle barriers to self-love, trust and connection. 

I believe that the answers you seek are not out there-- they're inside of you and have been all along.

All the undigested life experiences and their emotional energy get in the way of your own truth. 

Your heart holds the key. Your heart IS the key. 🔑 

You are perfectly imperfect, more than enough, precious and you are worthy. Your life has a purpose. You have unique gifts that only you can give, and the world needs you. 

You matter. 

I am so glad you are here. 

Big love,