What does it mean to wake up inside your own life and realize the voice in your head might not be yours? In this Earth Xperiences episode, Dani sits down with Amber, also known as @cultlifeescaped, to explore the layered and often invisible impact of growing up in a high-control religious group.
Amber shares what it felt like to live inside a structure that used fear, isolation, and conditional love as tools for obedience. Together, they discuss how belief systems can become systems of surveillance, where language is policed, thoughts are suppressed, and silence is a requirement.
This conversation is not just about leaving religion. It is about recovering personal agency, noticing how programming shows up in daily life, and trying to rebuild self-trust after a lifetime of being taught to surrender it.
They explore questions like
Is questioning always framed as rebellion in groups that fear doubt?
Why do some belief systems claim love but punish autonomy?
What happens when the consequences of thinking for yourself include losing family, friends, and your spiritual identity?
How does it feel to be free physically but still trapped mentally?
Can you be spiritual without subscribing to religious obedience?
This episode holds space for those who were raised to believe that compliance was holiness and disconnection was discipline. Dani and Amber reflect on the unspoken grief of choosing clarity over comfort and how hard it is to explain spiritual abuse when the outside world only sees “faith.”
Questions explored in this episode include
How do you unlearn control when it was labeled love?
Why is spiritual trauma so hard to name?
What does spiritual freedom look like without fear of punishment?
Can you honor your family and still reject their beliefs?
Is God still with you when the group says you are lost?
Whether you are just beginning to ask questions or have been rebuilding your life for years, this conversation is for anyone who was taught to distrust their own mind in the name of faith.
About the Creator
Amber
Instagram: @cultlifeescaped
TikTok: @cultlifeescaped