How often does this podcast release new episodes?

This podcast updates bi-weekly.

Where can I listen to this podcast?

This podcast is available on 6 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.

Does this podcast accept guests?

Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

Pretty Psych

Claim This Podcast

by Mountain City Christian Counseling

5.0(3 reviews)

34 episodes

Updated Bi-weekly

Accepts GuestsHas SponsorsLocation 🇺🇸

Podcast Overview

Megan Owen, from Mountain City Christian Counseling, discusses deconstruction and deep, (often uncharted) psychology. Raw and rough, at times. Also, pretty fascinating, pretty amazing, pretty intelligent… We are Pretty Psych!

Language

🇺🇲

Publishing Since

12/28/2022

Visit Website View on Apple Podcasts RSS Feed

1 verified contact email on file for Pretty Psych

Pitch yourself as a guest, propose sponsorships, or reach out directly to the host.

See contact details

Recent Episodes

July 17, 2026

Raising Whole Men: A Better Story About Masculinity, Sexuality, and Healing Part 2—With Sam Jolman

<h3 id="keytakeaways">Key Takeaways:</h3> <ul> <ul> <ul> <li>Sam Jolman, author of The Sex Talk You Never Got, joins Megan in discussing men's and young adult's sexuality.</li> <li>They discuss culture and how to approach difficult topics with sons.</li> </ul> </ul> </ul> <h3 id="notablequotes">Notable Quotes:</h3> <ul> <ul> <ul> <li>"It's awkward for everyone, you know, even me with my sons. And so just to start with that normalization of like, this is just a sacred part of us. And most of us come from a lot of sexual neglect, meaning like we haven't had a lot of sexual formation that was healthy or innocent and blessed, you know, a message of blessing." — Sam Jolman</li> <li>"Intimacy is all the levels. It's everything and wow... Sex is not intimacy. Intimacy is not sex, but sex is part of a wide array of intimacy." — Megan Owen</li> <li>"Her [Peggy Orenstein] one sentence conclusion, which I thought was powerful, was when it comes to sex for women, she would say they need to learn to connect to their bodies and men need to learn to connect to their hearts." — Sam Jolman</li> <li>"So just understanding the vicious culture among men, and you're going to be left out. If you decide you're going to be a tender hearted man, unless you find good friends... so just understanding your son will be left out. And I hate that." — Sam Jolman</li> </ul> </ul> </ul> <h3 id="resources">Resources:</h3> <ul> <ul> <ul> <li>Mountain City Christian Counseling: <a href="http://mountaincitychristiancounseling.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">mountaincitychristiancounseling.com</a></li> <li>Sam Jolman: <a href="https://www.samjolman.com/">Sam Jolman | Therapist & Author</a></li> <li>The Sex Talk You Never Got: <a href="https://www.samjolman.com/the-sex-talk-you-never-got-book/">The Sex Talk You Never Got by Sam Jolman</a></li> </ul> </ul> </ul> MEGAN: (0:03) This is Pretty Psych, the podcast where we discuss and deconstruct the impact of evangelical Christianity and cultural phenomena on the psyche, the deep and sometimes uncharted territory of the mind. We venture into raw, rough, and sometimes triggering moments, but we know that through this what we will find will be pretty fascinating, amazing, and pretty intelligent. My name is Megan Owen. I'm a pastoral trauma counselor, and I have spent decades studying the science of human behavior. I draw parallels between therapy and connection to God, self, and others. I love what I do, and I will walk hand in hand with you through the fire to help you find healing and rest. Most importantly, I want to bring you home to yourself.  (1:10) Yes, thank you. This is just so helpful, and I'm hearing you say that if your son is coming to you, mom or dad, that's amazing that he's trusting you, that he knows that you're safe, and that he knows that he can get help with you. He's looking for help, and so when they come, you're saying instead of just setting up the roadblocks and the restrictions, which that's good, that's important because our kids need to know that we're safely placing boundaries around them because we love them, but just for some language, I think if I were to give practical language for what you just gave us, it would be something along the lines of, son, I'm so glad that you're sharing this with me and that you trust me to receive this. I love you so much. This doesn't change how I feel about you. I want to help you with this. I didn't know this was happening, so I couldn't help you. Now I know this is happening, and I want to help you with this, so let's do this together, and that's maybe a good start, you think, for then taking those beautiful steps that you've just outlined for us. SAM: (2:29) Yes, and I know some parents actually reward their kids for having told. MEGAN: (2:36) Oh, interesting. SAM: (2:37) I know, meaning like, I'm so proud of you, and this is so brave that you've let me into your journey, and so reward meaning like your words of blessing to their bravery, and there's a difference between if it's an ongoing habit versus we've told our sons. I have three sons myself coming of age, so an almost 15-year-old, a 12-year-old, and a 9-year-old, so we've told our sons really with anything in the realm of sexuality, like if you invite us in, if you tell us stuff that happens, thank you, and we're going to take you to ice cream, so they know like. MEGAN: (3:21) Oh, I love that, yeah. SAM: (3:23) Yeah, and because the other thing I'd want you to know is that the realm of evil wants your son to bury their sexuality in shame, and then get stuck in the sin-shame cycle. I feel shame, and I hide, and I live in secrets and silence, which only furthers my pull to go self-soothe because I've invited nobody in, and so the fact that they're breaking it is against even the realm of evil, so trying to fight those messages of shame of something must be perverted about me that I'm drawn to this, something must be wrong with me that I was curious. I had parents, and they've given me permission to share this story. Their 14-year-old son did that very thing, say to them, “Mom, Dad, I need to let you know I've been looking at pornography for a few months, and I'm so scared. Help me.” They had no idea he had access, and so they started to ask the story, what happened? He had been at school with some friends who had been talking about girls they liked, and for some reason, it made him scared to tell about the girl he liked because he might have to kiss her someday, and he realized he didn't know how to kiss a girl, which is such an innocent curiosity, right? But he felt that lack of knowledge as shameful, so he went home and somehow snuck on the... He didn't want anybody to know he didn't know how to kiss a girl, so he snuck on the computer somehow and did an internet search for how to kiss a girl, and along with explanations came up pornography, right? Because again, they're looking for their next customer, and that... He had never seen anything like this, right? And so there was initially curiosity, but then there was a sense of something must be really perverted about even my question, because look what came up. So I'd want you to just understand that your children are probably battling shame messages. Shame, in my opinion, is never from God. Conviction is, but shame in that sense of you're dirty, you're perverted, you're evil, you know, those messages are not from God. So just coming to understand how you can start to explore with them what some of those messages they battle are as well feels important. MEGAN: (6:08) So important. I have so many thoughts running through my head as I'm listening to you, and I don't know if this is true for all moms. It never occurred to me that any of my children would feel shame for who they were because I'm so crazy about them. SAM: (6:29) That's awesome. MEGAN: (6:31) Over the top. SAM: (6:32) I love that. I love it. MEGAN: (6:34) Even my own kids are like, you know, but I've told them so... I've probably gone overboard with telling them how remarkable they are to me and how special they are and how they are inherently very good and they have hearts of gold and how proud I am of them just because they are them and I love being with them, just being with them. And I've also discovered as they've entered young adulthood that they did have messages, like not from me, but from other places. They received messages that their sexuality was inherently wrong. And I didn't realize it. And so I wonder how many other parents, I don't know if that's just a me thing, but it's important for us to know that they're receiving these messages. Like the boy you just described who felt shame for not, how would he know how to kiss a girl? SAM: (7:29) And you're like, how did, what? Yeah. Right. Evil is trying. Evil hates sexuality. And so evil is trying to get messages of shame early in all of our stories. And so, yes, it can feel like, what? You struggle with what about yourself? MEGAN: (7:53) You're so amazing. You're my kid, you know? So yes. Yeah. But it is out there. And, you know, I wish, Sam, that I'd had your book when they were little. I know that things went the way they were supposed to go in our lives. But like you said, it's not too late to make this. Even with your 24, 25 year old, it's not too late. And it's very healing. And I did discover with my son, my younger son, when I did, you know, I just owned everything without giving him any reason to feel he needed to take care of me. He said, mama, I forgive you. He knows what our family's been through. He understands. And he's even moving into some protectiveness for his sisters and his mom. And just kind of as he grows, he's actually really crazy healthy. My son is. SAM: (8:48) That's amazing. MEGAN: (8:49) Even though we've been through so much together, like it's not too late. You're gonna make mistakes and you’re gonna make repair and you get to be human. So let me ask you this. If a mom feels awkward and unqualified, where does she even begin with her child, with her son? Can you give us language even? I mean, really basic, like tell us how to start. SAM: (9:15) Yeah. On one hand, it's okay to just honor that, that awkward feeling is partly because this is sacred and this is vulnerable. And this is a unique part of our existence as human sexuality is. And so right. We're the only species that covers our bodies and veils ourselves. And I think that's beautiful that God, you know, set it up that way. I actually think it's because, you know, bodies are glorious, not because they're shameful, you know, but God invited us to veil ourselves. So just understanding, like, it's okay for it to be awkward. That doesn't mean you are weird. It doesn't mean you're screwing it up. It's awkward for everyone, you know, even me with my sons. And so just to start with that normalization of like, this is just a sacred part of us. And most of us come from a lot of sexual neglect, meaning like we haven't had a lot of sexual formation that was healthy or innocent and blessed, you know, a message of blessing. So just starting with, you're probably coming from your own neglect, maybe even your own stories of shame. And so it's okay for that to be there. Second, I would say to not think of this as one talk, but to think of this as hundreds of little, even one minute talks. They don't have to be an hour long. In fact, probably you and your child are not going to be able to cope initially with an hour long conversation that would probably overwhelm them with like, whoa. Okay. So trying to meet, you know, I always encourage trying to meet your child at the level of their curiosity and paying attention to where they seem at their limit and being okay to be done there. And then, you know, what are the hundreds of one minute talks? Well, some of them will probably come to you spontaneously, meaning you're watching a movie or you're listening to a song together and you suddenly hear lyrics or you see a scene that maybe paints a picture of sexuality you don't like, or paints a picture of love and romance and sexuality that is good, right? And you take a moment to highlight it, talk about it. It could be you're in public and you see that. Meaning, so some of them are going to come to you. I was on a walk with my sons. This was a year ago, I think, maybe a little more. And my 12 year old son, we were walking our dog around the block and there was a car that said, condoms prevent minivans. Yeah. On the back of this little teeny car. Right. And my son said, dad, what's a condom? My 11 year old. So I was like, okay, here's, here we go. Here's where, yeah, here we go. We're going to do our one minute conversation on condoms. And so I explained, you know, we've talked about what sex is and this is, you know, it's called safe sex and it, it's, you know, it prevents, it's like a balloon. And I explained, you know, the basics of this is for a guy and it prevents the sperm, blah, blah, blah. And, you know, he was at his limit. He's like, okay, that was more than he bargained for. Right. But, but, and it was awkward. And I was like, okay, that was the one minute talk. And he's like, all right, thank you. Now the joke made sense. But at least I would say just, if you don't honor your kid's curiosity, they're going to go somewhere with their questions. So I think even normalizing with your kid, this will feel awkward. It's okay. If this feels awkward and you can tell me if you want me to stop talking, you can tell me if it's too much, we can stop there. Just normalizing that you can tell them it's awkward for me too. This is a sacred part of us. It can feel really vulnerable. Where else? I think, you know, again, and even if it's having to cast a vision from, you know, God made this to be pleasurable. God made your body for pleasure. You have three to 4,000 taste buds, right? You have eight to 10,000 nerve endings in your genitalia. Like God wired you for pleasure. So it's casting a vision of this can be good. It's meant to be an act of love, you know, speaking to those sorts of things. It doesn't have to be like, okay, let me tackle all the hard topics. In fact, if that's all you do, you know, it can put a, it can feel weighty to it. And then I think trying to read your son, your child, just with what's, where are they at? What's the culture around them in their friend group? What do you think is some of their questions? Just kind of guessing a little bit. What are you hearing from their friends? What's going on? If a friend has a breakup, if there's a divorce in their friend group, if you know stuff's going on, just trying to listen in and just have a little bit of a pulse on and try to read a little bit ahead to where are they at? I think, you know, things like if they're dating, starting to talk about what it means to honor a woman. I think just trying to set yourself up to be a safe place where you're going to, you're going to actually honor their questions. So like my 15 year old son has come home and said, dad, what does 69 mean? Dad, what is, what is, that's what she said. What are those jokes? My sons have asked me like, how do you know when you're ready to marry? What, how do you ask a girl out? What do you do on a date? Like just, you know, those are all sex talk conversations and you don't have to say everything. Right. Like when my son asked me, what does 69 mean? I was like, Oh, wow. Okay. And I was like, well, there are different positions you can have sex in. And that's where we left that one. So that was a 10 second conversation. MEGAN: (16:08) Yes. And I, you know, I didn't be 10 seconds. Yes. Right. SAM: (16:12) But it was, you know, I'm going to at least give him an answer that honors, and he didn't ask more. I was waiting to see if he was going to ask more. But you know, for 13 or 14, that's where that was enough. Okay. MEGAN: (16:30) So I'm hearing two things that I love. Um, the first one is that everything you've said in this whole podcast has this underlying river of relationality rather than behavior. That's everything you've said has relationships. So if we don't get past the 10 seconds, it still has this relational quality. It's okay for us to go, Oh, wow. Okay. That's when I didn't see coming, but here I'm here for it. You know? So by doing that, you're still creating that safe container for your kids to be able to talk to you about things. And I think, I think that's a big part of the essence of, of your book and of, of all of the things you've done for all these years. And that is, let's get to the core of this. Let's get to the relational piece of this. Let's let's see about wholeness, not, and then, then out of that comes the behavior. So you're saying inside out rather than outside in, and to have that relationship with your kids, that's open and honest, nonjudgmental. Um, you can ask me the questions. If I don't know, we'll figure it out. Or the way I did it was okay. You guys, I, I never received any of what I'm trying to give you. So grace for mama. Okay. I'm going to try this with you because I love you. And you know, this is new for me too, but I'm really excited to, to build up these conversations with you and start somewhere. And so, so it's okay to say things like that. That's relational and they know I love them, even though I'm going to make mistakes and I do make mistakes, you know, we all do. So. SAM: (18:14) Yeah. That's so good. Yeah. It's okay to say, can I get back to you? Let me think about it. It's also okay to say that. MEGAN: (18:24) But you have to get back to them though. You have to make sure you do. Yes. So I have one more question. We've kept you a long time. I could, we could go on. Okay, good. SAM: (18:36) I haven't even noticed the time. MEGAN: (18:38) Oh, good. That's good. So, you know, speaking relationally, how do boys learn to separate tenderness from sexuality and then how do we help them with that reorientation that reintegration? SAM: (18:53) Yeah. You know, there's, there's work by a woman, Peggy Orenstein. Uh, she's written, she's a journalist and she wrote a couple of books on the sex culture of high school and college age, young men and young women. And it is meaningful work to read. She interviewed like 150 young men, 150 young women to just try to get a pulse on that. Her one sentence conclusion, which I thought was powerful was when it comes to sex for women, she would say they need to learn to connect to their bodies and men need to learn to connect to their hearts. She's like, if I summarized all my work, that would be the one sentence that was powerful for me. She, what did she mean by that for young men? Well, she would say there is a, again, this is kind of the initiation, masculine initiation culture stuff, which treats sex as a commodity, as a scoring, as a points in the masculine world. Did you get some, I remember the very day that I got invited into that masculine culture myself in eighth grade, I had started going out with a girl in eighth grade. And I remember her name. I've changed her name, but we'll call her Jane. And I remember being at the vending machine and a upperclassman, I think a 10th or 11th grader came up to me and said, did you get some? And I, I didn't know what he was talking about at first. And then it clicked. He knew that I had started going out with Jane and I started hanging out with her and we had walked the mall. We did that back in the day. And we would talk on the phone and she would write me notes and colored ink that I loved. Right. And I just remember being, I just like, I felt still in my tenderness. Like I just loved the phone calls and the notes and the colored ink and the hanging out. Like I didn't, I didn't have this mindset of getting some, I maybe wanted to kiss her. I think I'd held her hand, but it wasn't a scoring, but I remember realizing like, Oh, this guy's aware I'm going out with her. And I just said, I held her hand when he asked, did you get some? And he laughed in my face and walked away. And I knew I had failed the test of becoming, you know, entering the world of men. So just understanding there's, there is a, there's a culture of that in men. And I, I think it's driven by the more ego, fragile men who use it to get status. So and Peggy Orenstein would say that that culture tends to start to separate men from their tenderness. That it's not cool anymore. You know, guys that I had a, a man tell me he remembers writing poetry to his first girlfriend. And then the football players, he was on the football team. His fellow football players hazed him in the locker room because they found out he had been writing poetry to his girlfriend. And they mocked him. MEGAN: (22:44) I feel that right here. That just, that's heartbreaking. That's hard. SAM: (22:48) Yes. And he was a man now married. And he said, I had totally forgotten that story, but I stopped writing poetry that day. I said, I will never do that again. And he said it through tears of like, because now he's married, trying to emotionally connect to his wife and she's missing his heart. Right. I'm not saying that's the only event, but that was one significant moment where he set aside his tenderness. So just understanding the vicious culture among men, and you're going to be left out. If you decide you're going to be a tender hearted man, unless you find good friends. And I was grateful to have found a group of friends in late college or right out of college I lived with that allowed for tenderness and it was holy. They were Christian men and I went to therapy and I had a male counselor who brought me back to my tenderness, but like, so just understanding your son will be left out. And I hate that. I hate that. Because it's, as you've said so well, it's setting a part of you aside, living half of you. MEGAN: (24:06) Exiling a part of you in order to be, to pass the test. Right. And it's not, it doesn't even, you don't get, it's not good. You don't, what do you win? You know? SAM: (24:19) Right. One of my, one of the most powerful quotes that Peggy Orenstein shared is from a, a college junior who said, um, I've had two hookups, two one night stands in college, two anonymous sex party hookups. And they both left me feeling empty and depressed. And like, what did I get other than I had sex with somebody? And this, this young man spoke to what you've said so well, this is already wired in you. You don't have to make this up, but he said, it didn't leave me with what I really value, which is feelings of discovery, connection, and intimacy. So here was a young man wrestling with, I tried the culture and it left me empty and depressed because I actually want intimacy and connection. And so I think there's a place, and I plan to have this conversation with my sons and have in ways about this, that the sex culture of college, the sex culture of high school to set them up with there are men, you're going to meet men who make sex about power and scoring, and you need to be aware that's going to happen. And that that's not how God wired you, you aren't made for that. MEGAN: (25:56) I, Sam, I just have no words. This is so incredibly helpful. I want to lift out the word intimacy for a second. Because, and I do my clients know about the intimacy cake that I video that I show all the time that has nice emotional intimacy. And then really, you know, like it has like, and then the fondant is the sexual intimacy and all the different levels of intimacy. And the reason I did that video is because, um, the word intimacy people, I think just go to sex. Like that's what that means to them. And that was kind of a new thing for me in the last 10, 15 years, I actually thought of as like sharing our stories and sharing our hearts. And, you know, look at this article and let's talk about that. That's how I thought of intimacy. And I don't know if it's my autism that, you know, I took very literally but intimacy in a lot of circles just means sex. That's really a shame because it's so all encompassing of everything, right? SAM: (27:06) Yes. Yes. Yes. Struggle. Yeah. And maybe that's a, I don't know if that's a counseling culture thing, but like, yes, we associate right. MEGAN: (27:20) Intimacy would say I'm really struggling in my intimacy. I would think, Oh, we need to person up a little bit and start talking. I know I'm going on a rabbit trail here, but I just wanted to say it's so true. Intimacy is all the levels. It's everything and wow. When it's everything, you know, so. Sex is not intimacy. Intimacy is not sex, but sex is part of a wide array of intimacy.  SAM: (27:50) Well said. Yes. And understanding that. And I, think one of the powerful things that happens for me with men in counseling is when they begin to, some guys have just never had their emotional selves valued. Or called out. Nobody said to them, you are fully capable of bonding and being emotionally vulnerable with your wife. Some men have just never been told that. And it's tragic. And they've never experienced that. And I'm not saying they aren't at fault for having to own that. I'm just saying a lot of men are set up to not know that or to even have a, a tasted experience of like, this is actually really pleasurable to be emotionally connected to your partner. MEGAN: (28:43) And she wants that. She loves that. She is not going to say, wow, he's not very manly. That's not going to happen. That's what she's looking for. SAM: (28:53) Yes. I have, you know, one client and she's given me permission to share this because I shared it in the book. You know, the tragic story of, she said, I always knew what kind of day my husband had based on how he tried to have sex with me at night. And she said, sometimes I was the thing. I felt like I was the thing that he had to conquer and it was awful. That's, I felt so used. And it, I, I've thought about that guy so often as like, what, what if he had just come home and said, I had a really hard day. Can I talk? That's probably what he needed, but the wrestling with the vulnerability of that. And obviously the harm he was creating in his marriage. And so the work was to empower her to say, I'm not okay with this. And to begin to say, you don't have a right to my body. MEGAN: (29:51) And that's the work that I do also, as you know, is helping women understand that they're not here to be regulated on. They're not here to be used. SAM: (30:01) Oh, that's a powerful sentence. MEGAN: (30:03)  It's, yeah, it is so needed. And sadly, even in a lot of our church cultures, they really believe that's their whole job is to be regulated on. And that is such a lie. That is so far from what sexual intimacy is. That is, it's a poor imitation of the real thing. It's a poor imitation of the real thing. And it's painful. It's painful for everybody. And I want to bring in for our listeners, I know what it's like to have been objectified, been the woman who was the score, been the woman who was used, was regulated on, and then have to do this healing work and then turn around and teach my sons what healthy sexuality and manhood. That is, that's hero work. It's not for the faint of heart. And so as you're listening to this, if you're like me or one of our clients, you are to be so honored and respected for even listening for this far for doing the healing work in your own life so that you can raise your sons in not that you have to set aside your story. SAM: (31:23) So well said. I just want to echo that blessing on that work as heroic. Yes, that is so powerful. What you described. MEGAN: (31:34) And I hope that everyone listening gets Sam's book. Again, he's here in Colorado where our state is lucky to have you. And I'm so thankful for you, Sam. You have made an indelible mark in our family. SAM: (31:54) Thank you. MEGAN: (31:55) Your work is powerful and I just feel deeply edified and even more equipped too. And if you don't know this, I teach parenting classes, listeners to moms who are single parenting and have kids who are at times dysregulated. We do a lot of DBT skills and things like that. And actually this is where it came up, Sam, because we were all like the questions they were asking. I was like, I need help. I need to get Sam Joelman on our podcast so I can ask questions because I don't know how to answer all these questions from these moms. SAM: (32:40) I'm so honored. And I just want to say as well, what you've described your work to work through your story of men and to make space for your son, that is wildly powerful work. So it's not just what you say. Your son will feel the difference in your presence. He will feel the space you're making for men to be more than just monsters, right? He will feel that. But again, you have to honor the monsters you've met in men. And it's not. MEGAN: (33:15) Thank you, Sam. It has been an absolute gift to have you today.  (33:19) I hope this conversation has encouraged deep thought as well as helped you draw parallels between therapy and your connection to God's self and others. If you'd like some one-on-one time with me, unpacking some of your most precious life stories to find healing and rest, contact me on mountaincitychristiancounseling.com. To help this podcast reach more people, do subscribe and review this podcast and share it with someone who would benefit from healing and rest. My name is Megan Owen, and thank you for listening to this episode of Pretty Psych. Catch you next episode. And in the meantime, do find healing and do find rest.

July 10, 2026

Raising Whole Men: A Better Story About Masculinity, Sexuality, and Healing—With Sam Jolman

<h3 id="keytakeaways">Key Takeaways:</h3> <ul> <ul> <ul> <li>Sam Jolman, author of The Sex Talk You Never Got, joins Megan in discussing men's and young adult's sexuality.</li> <li>They discuss culture and how to approach difficult topics with sons.</li> </ul> </ul> </ul> <h3 id="notablequotes">Notable Quotes:</h3> <ul> <ul> <ul> <li>"They didn't know to think richly about their own heart and being what I call in the book...to be a lover, you know, because the reality is men are just as deeply capable of emotional human connection as women. And women are just as sexually wired as men..." — Sam Jolman</li> <li>"...so women just kind of drop this whole sacred, feminine sexuality on the floor, like it's not there. And then men drop their deep emotional need for connection on the floor, like it's not there. And so you're helping people to tap into those things that are actually already there and they just haven't been exercised." — Megan Owen</li> <li>"You're actually wired like Adam, to be a lover, to be a poet, whether literally or...emotionally, figuratively, like this has deep connections to you. You're made for deep connection. You're made to be in awe of beauty..." — Sam Jolman</li> <li>"...I've never seen a man in my office outgrow his desire for his mother's blessing. It changes obviously, as you come of age and get more independent and live a separate life. But I've sat with so many men who weep tears over their longing for their mother to bless them as much as their fathers. So, I hope that speaks hope." — Sam Jolman</li> </ul> </ul> </ul> <h3 id="resources">Resources:</h3> <ul> <ul> <ul> <li>Mountain City Christian Counseling: <a href="http://mountaincitychristiancounseling.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">mountaincitychristiancounseling.com</a></li> <li>Sam Jolman: <a href="https://www.samjolman.com/">Sam Jolman | Therapist & Author</a></li> <li>The Sex Talk You Never Got: <a href="https://www.samjolman.com/the-sex-talk-you-never-got-book/">The Sex Talk You Never Got by Sam Jolman</a></li> </ul> </ul> </ul> MEGAN: (0:03) This is Pretty Psych, the podcast where we discuss and deconstruct the impact of evangelical Christianity and cultural phenomena on the psyche, the deep and sometimes uncharted territory of the mind. We venture into raw, rough, and sometimes triggering moments, but we know that through this what we will find will be pretty fascinating, amazing, and pretty intelligent. My name is Megan Owen. I'm a pastoral trauma counselor, and I have spent decades studying the science of human behavior. I draw parallels between therapy and connection to God, self, and others. I love what I do, and I will walk hand in hand with you through the fire to help you find healing and rest. Most importantly, I want to bring you home to yourself.  (1:11) Hi friends, Megan Owen here with Mountain City Christian Counseling. Welcome to Pretty Psych. Today, I am over the top excited to have Sam Joelman with us on Pretty Psych. Sam, he is a trauma therapist, MA, LPC. He has over 20 years of experience specializing in men's issues and sexual trauma recovery. Being a therapist has given him a front row seat to hear hundreds of men and women share their stories. His writing flows out of this unique opportunity to help people know and heal their stories and find greater sexual wholeness and aliveness. He received his master's in counseling from Reformed Theological Seminary and was further trained in narrative-focused trauma care through the Allender Center at the Seattle School of Theology and Psychology. Sam lives here in Colorado with his wife and three sons. Together, they enjoy exploring the best camping spots in Colorado in a pop-up camper. Sam goes to therapy, loves fly fishing, and can often be found trying to catch his breath on the floor of his local CrossFit gym. Sam, welcome. We are so happy to have you today. SAM: (2:29) Oh, Megan, the feeling of joy and excitement for this is mutual. I have deep respect for your work in the world. I'm a fan of yours. I follow your work and love the voice you're bringing to such important suffering in the world and how you speak to that. So the respect is very mutual. MEGAN: (2:51) It is so mutual. Well, I was just telling Sam before we started that we were on the list of people to receive his book early. I'm not sure what that list is called exactly, but we had the emails. I was so excited when I found out about your book, The Sex Talk You Never Got, because I am also a single mom, like most of my clients. Probably 80% of them are single mothers. I have two sons. I have two daughters, two sons. It was already difficult for me to have regular sex talks with my girls because our generation just didn't receive that from anybody. So to be able to talk to my son about whole masculinity and sex in a healthy way was super challenging for me. And so your book was an absolute gift to our family. SAM: (3:46) Thank you. That is such an honor as a writer to sit for so many hours alone. I actually printed off these little pictures. They're up here on the wall of readers. I just printed stock photos of people reading books so that I had somebody to pray for. And I printed men and women and old and young and just like, all right, God, give me stories. And so, man, and I cried so many tears at those prayers. So to meet and hear stories like yours, it's just, it's like a homecoming. It's like, oh, those are you and your son and your family, just readers stories are for that to be the fulfillment of who I was praying for. So thank you for sharing that. That means a lot. MEGAN: (4:39) This is emotional. It was just such a gift. And we'll put, of course, we'll put links to your work within this podcast. But before we go into that, I do want to ask you, Sam, what led you to write this book? What were you seeing in boys, men over and over in your counseling office? SAM: (5:00) Yeah, you know, I think we're, this is a setup for men and women, but the sense that I got is, you know, that sex is for men. Romance is for women is what is kind of the setup that we're taught. Right. And so, you know, as a man, you know, sex is what you really want, emotional connection, and all of that is what women want, which I think is such a curse on both men and women, because it sets women up, obviously, to be just, you know, you give out the sex. It's not that you are sexual in yourself, and that men are not capable of deep emotional connection. And so I think just seeing in my office, how wrong that was, how deeply men want connection, but they feel it's almost odd, you know, to be a man who wants emotional connection. And so I think there was a sense of like, how do I help men start to think more deeply about their sexuality, their hearts, their longings. A lot of men would come into therapy as well. You know, and whenever the topic of sex would come up, it would be really a conversation around, am I behaving or not behaving? Am I lusting or not lusting? Am I looking at pornography or not looking at pornography? And there was a sense of, they only saw it as good or bad behavior as well. They didn't know to think richly about their own heart and being what I call in the book, you know, to be a lover, you know, because the reality is men are just as deeply capable of emotional human connection as women. And women are just as sexually wired as men, right? These are not separate categories. I mean, the song of songs, we need to look no further than that. Both lovers love sex and are deeply emotionally connected to each other and love each other. So, you know, I think God gives that picture. I mean, they're writing poetry to each other. How do I help, you know, men enter their sexuality with a deeper, fuller heart was the desire. And then, you know, a big push into this was the Me Too movement and seeing, you know, I think the whole world was witnessing, you know, the reality that of men, of women suffering anything from severe trauma, sexual trauma to daily cat calls from men. And it wasn't only men, right? That were—people were sharing their stories and it wasn't only women sharing stories of suffering. It was also men, but through that time, you know, it felt like the world was asking, like, is this just what men are? Are men just this way, right? And even the church has a version of that. Like it's every man's battle you're going to lust. It's just kind of your, your inheritance as a man and feeling like, man, this is such a horrible picture of masculine sexuality. And knowing as a Christian, the story of Eden and knowing that this God made male sexuality. I know he made it for good. What is that good? That it's meant to give a man's personal life, but the world, his, his lover, his wife, but the world in general. So those were kind of the setups. And then of course, being a young man and not having had a sex talk and all that I suffered on that road, entering my own therapy and finding my own way to embodying sexuality well. And so I'm writing to the young man in me as well. It's probably most writers are, right? We're writing to younger selves. So I would say those things converged. MEGAN: (9:26) Beautiful. Thank you for that. So we're seeing a setup for men and women to, you know, as you're talking, I have this visual of a human and half of them is like laying on the floor untapped. Right. Because, because we are told this, this is how women are. This is how men are. And you don't get to have that. And you don't get to have that. As far as sexuality goes. And so women just kind of drop this whole sacred, feminine sexuality on the floor, like it's not there. And then men drop their deep emotional need for connection on the floor, like it's not there. And so you're helping people to tap into those things that are actually already there and they just haven't been exercised. Right. SAM: (10:16) Yeah. Yeah. That's a powerful picture. And I think it's an accurate one, right? To disown half yourself. Right. And, and, and really as you're naming well, the glory of God in your full humanness. Right. That's well said. MEGAN: (10:35) And what I've been learning from you and from others is that when you're able to, to, I don't know, tap into it. I don't know if that's a great way to say it, but when, when you connect, when you connect with that part that would normally be laying on the floor because you've been told it's not alive, you really feel better. Like you have a wholeness of, Oh, I don't have to just lop off this part of me and I get to be a full female and he gets to be a full male because he's bringing this in as well. It's not— I imagine it's scary for men to say, okay, I'm standing on this precipice and there's emotional connection there. And I've never really experienced that. I didn't know I could, I didn't know I was supposed to, am I still going to be masculine? Does that happen? SAM: (11:27) Right. Yes. I— you know, it's, it's strange. I've been surprised. And also I guess in the end, not surprised, but men will come and say things like, sometimes I feel more like the woman in the relationship because I want the emotional connection. And I'm like, why do we have to say it that way? Right? But they do because it's like the man, they feel like they're disowning their man card. Right? Say like or a man that said to me, I know I'm just supposed to always be ready, but I'm actually missing romance with my wife right now. And again, I think they're speaking to this pressure of like, you're supposed to just want sex, but even as you're saying so well, even the men that I, that maybe feel more in that category of, no, I want sex. I'll ask them like, what do you love about sex? And they'll say things like, you know, well, it's the time I feel most wanted or most desired by my wife. It's when I have her full attention or I feel special to her or I feel connection. It's more the depth of affection. So it's things that in the end come back to their emotional selves. MEGAN: (12:54) That's connection. Right. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I see what you're saying. You can't really separate most of the time. You can't, you know, a lot of men that you've experienced this really is an emotional sex is emotional for them. SAM: (13:07) So, yes. MEGAN: (13:08) Wow. Okay. All right. Well, this is exciting. I'm loving this conversation. So what do you think, Sam, most boys don't receive emotionally or spiritually around sexuality growing up? SAM: (13:24) You know, I think so quickly the conversation, and again, I'm, there's not a, I don't think this is, you know, evil intent in the parents. I think it's been kind of the cultural air we breathe. There's such a quick push to, you know, here's what sex is kind of the birds and the bees or the mechanics of it. And they're very quick push to purity, within Christian circles, you know, so, you know, here's how it works. Don't screw it up. Right. And there's no, there's quick, a quick conversation about lust. And, I think it makes men feel that their sexuality is certainly true of me that their sexuality is kind of a monster that they need to contain or put in a cage or they're going to, you're going to be fighting this part of you, your whole life, just get ready. And it, there's not a blessing of like, you're actually wired for sensuality. You're actually wired like Adam, to be a lover, to be a poet, whether literally or, you know, emotionally, figuratively, like this has deep connections to you. You're made for deep connection. You're made to be in awe of beauty, right? You're wired. Just like you would see a sunset. You're wired to see beauty in a woman. And people in general, you know, I had a reader, a father who actually, his kids go to my son's school and he stopped me and with tears in his eyes told me he had read my book. He had sat down with one of his sons over breakfast, to have the sex talk. And he said to be able to tell my son about how beautiful sexuality is and how he's wired. He said he and his son were crying tears of joy at like, he, he said to be able to tell my son, you, you get to fall in love with a woman. Like you see a beautiful sunset, you know, that was a door that was so helpful for him. And he had said he'd never had that blessed inside of him. So I think just those capacities to me, either there's nothing said. And so men kind of find their way or end up talking to their friends, or sadly more nowadays go to pornography for their sex education. Right. Or they get something like a purity talk that just sort of keeps them again at setting up, setting it up as an animosity towards your sexual self. MEGAN: (16:26) This is so important, Sam. And as you're talking, I'm thinking about my clients, our audience, the, our coaches, the women I work with, there are so many complexities with raising our sons. So a lot of us have been doing it alone, and their fathers, our boys fathers are abusive. And so there's no blessing coming to them from their father. So we are trying to be mother and father in a lot of ways. And not everybody, I mean, some people like some people have a, like some of my moms have a father who could do that for their children. But most of the women that I've worked with for the last 15 years are on their own a hundred percent. And then to make it even more complex, their fathers, they were addicted to porn. And so I know for me, I brought in, cause my kids were all four of them were real little when I left, but I was staunchly against porn. I knew what it had done to our marriage, to me, to my kids. I knew what it had done. And so I had that, you know, but I didn't know how to manage any sort of healthy sexuality for my boys, which, you know, I've talked to them. I've asked their forgiveness for not knowing what to do, what to say, but also because of my work, I think they sometimes felt as though men, men's sexuality was predatory. And because of that, they were hurt by that. And I'm trying not to cry as I say this, I've asked their forgiveness. They love me there. You know, we have a good relationship and a lot has been healed, but because of the nature of working with abused women, men are seen as predatory. So let me ask you this and get your opinion on it. I think I'm sharing my opinion on it, but for women like me and for our clients, sometimes we accidentally communicate to our boys about male sexuality without realizing it. So can you join me in talking about how we sometimes can talk about sexuality in a way that make boys feel dangerous or shameful and what we do about that? SAM: (19:08) Yeah. You know, as much as I'm casting a vision for a different picture of masculine sexuality, obviously, you know, the, the subtitle of my book was reclaiming the heart of masculine sexuality, because I think without that heart, without that lover heart, without that heart of awe and honor and respect and reverence, right? Male sexuality tends to get put into the category of power or ego boosting or violating, taking right? Things go really bad. They can not saying they always do, but it can get pretty savage. I carry a lot of tenderness. My own, as I share in my book, my own mother had a very horrific story of suffering harm at the hands of really evil, sexually evil men. And she gave me permission to share that story in the book. So I, you know, even grew up under an awareness of her fear. And, and that was part of my gauntlet of like, you know, how do I interpret what her body says when she's afraid, you know, and I could read that and know that. So it's okay that that's there. And it is an important part of the story to tell. And I think all men understand that there is a culture in mass. There's a masculine culture that uses sex for ego stroking for, for initiation, for power, for status, right? It is why we have the culture of even something as simple as our sex joke culture, but the hazing culture that happens in locker rooms or sports teams or high schools or colleges, right. And even guys who are adult men you know, there can be a culture of sharing pornography or just even what a man is doing in secret, whether it's with, you know, a culture of men or not. So that's an important story to tell as well to say, sexuality can go here. It can leave your lover heart and go over to, to the ego stroking as I call it, right. The building up your ego and having power over. So I actually think that's an important conversation to have. And I think it's okay for mothers to have probably, you know, potentially even specifically as your children are late teenagers, early twenties to share parts of your own story, like men that you've met and, and right. To be able to share men that you've experienced who are good versus men who are harmful. What was the difference? What did you appreciate? Those stories can be just as initiating and helpful. So I would want to start by normalizing. It's okay. That parts of your story are present. It's best that you know, when they're showing up right. That you've done. And I, this probably goes without saying, but let me say it on behalf that you've done enough work around your, your experience of men that, you know, when you're in your triggers, even if it's an hour later and you're like, Oh no, I think I was triggered. Right. That even that is okay. If so that can— your sons can experience like, Oh, okay. It's okay. It's okay for them to know that part, that that happens. And I love that you did the repair work to say, I'm so sorry. I think I cast a vision that was partly specific. What I hear you saying is specific to my suffering. And let me tell you the rest of the story. I think being able to know, I will say this as a, as a son and I, I wanted my mother's blessing as much as I wanted my father's blessing of my sexuality. I wanted to know that there was a path for me to be sexually alive and also safe. That those didn't have to be separate. And so, you know, as much as we talk about, you know, fathers initiating sons and having these conversations, I think it's important, but like, I wanted it just as much from my mother to know I could be a good man and stay connected to my sexuality, that those didn't have to be separate. So I would want to just say, your voice so deeply matters to your sons. And can they tell you that? Probably not, you know, maybe as they come of age, you know, in their twenties, they can maybe say actually, you know, maybe they can start to find a voice for parts of this hunger. But so no matter where you are in the journey, if you feel like, oh, shoot, I've reacted out of my own story. There's always space for repair. There's no expiration date on this conversation. Would it be good to have at 13, 14, 15, as you come of age? Sure. Does that mean at 25, you're too late? No, I've never seen a man in my office outgrow his desire for his mother, his mother's blessing. It changes obviously, as you come of age and get more independent and live a separate life. But I've sat with so many men who weep tears over their longing for their mother to bless them as much as their fathers. So I hope that speaks hope. MEGAN: (25:39) Thank you. SAM: (25:40) Yes. MEGAN: (25:41) I hope for the mothers who are listening that this reaches a deep place in you, like it just did for me. Thank you, Sam. I needed to hear that. SAM: (25:55) I really appreciate that. Yes. MEGAN: (25:58) Okay. So Sam, you're talking about, you know, we may not have had these conversations with our sons at 12, 13, 14. It's scary. I think for us, it was scary for me to have talks with my girls. Now it's natural. So I do think that it gets better. Like if you're scared, just do a little bit and then it's going to, it will get easier. It will get better. It will. We're more comfortable. But what do we do when, say, our 14 year old son comes and says, mom, I've been looking at pornography and I don't know what to do. How do we do that as mamas? SAM: (26:43) I think first and foremost for any parent, father, mother, single parent or not, you know, that is, that's heavy. And so being able to regulate yourself to start with like, okay. Just breathing through that. Then I would say, I think it's important to treat a 14 year old struggling with pornography is different than a 35 year old struggling with pornography. A 14 year old struggling, struggling with pornography does not have the depth of the hardness of heart, does not have the depth of sophistication to know and be aware of all their getting drawn into. And so being able to separate, I'm not talking to a hardened man who is more culpable, more responsible, more aware of the harm of all of this, right? Do 14 year olds know about the misogyny inherent in the sex pornography industry? No, probably not. Right. Do they know all that is being scripted for them? No, I would say no. And so starting with saying, okay, my 14 year old coming to me, my 17 year old coming to me, my 19 year old coming to me is not a hardened misogynistic jerk. They are, and again, older ages, I think there's more responsibility to say you're aware more. So starting with that second to say, honor that they're scared, honor that they're coming to you. Honor that to tell you has been a profoundly brave act. I would not start with punishment. If you punish at all— now restricting access, engaging them and when and where and how they're looking is important, but I would start with not treating this as like, I've got to get to a discipline issue here. I would start with—in many ways. And in many times a young man's first experience of pornography sadly is—can often be a sexually violating moment, meaning somebody has shown them pornography. And when you don't know what's coming, even if you have a concept that pornography is about naked people having sex or something, you have no idea what that's actually going to be like to experience. And so trying to see this as they've been violated, even if they've been a part of sneaking, you've got to see that they've been violated by the culture of pornography, evil. So honor that they've risked with you and then get them help. Yes. So try to understand how, when, where did they start? Did somebody introduce it to them? Did somebody sexualize them to bring this into their lives or life to hold the tension of this isn't just, Oh, you know, I told you not to do that. You know, you're grounded. You need to make room for, they're probably pretty scared because they're probably pretty traumatized by what they've seen. Pornography is so—goes so fast towards misogyny and violation. And you know, as we know, it, it so manipulates scripts and, and gender and abuse. So just understand they're probably pretty shaken. And then I think restricting access certainly how are, you know, but you've got to leave room for their bodies and their arousal script have been impacted by this. So they need help unwinding that momentum. Not if that's all you do attempts at self-soothing. It could be out of sexual curiosity, but I, you know, I believe repeated movement back towards pornography always has its roots in some self-soothing. And it's not just an overactive sex drive, right? It's no, there's things that they're trying to regulate in their lives. So trying to invite them into what potentially getting them counseling, which I would recommend to help talk through what they've seen, but continue relationship with them. Make this more, certainly more than one conversation, but I would say my experience, most men to enter into a battle with pornography primarily out of their own. So what's their ritual when and where, and do you know what's going on in you before you look, just helping them see that it may not even be sexually needed. It obviously sexually impactful, but it could be a part of their story, part of their own trauma, part of their own sexualization from somebody through sexual abuse.   MEGAN: (33:12) I hope this conversation has encouraged deep thought as well as helped you draw parallels between therapy and your connection to God's self and others. If you'd like some one-on-one time with me, unpacking some of your most precious life stories to find healing and rest, contact me on mountaincitychristiancounseling.com. To help this podcast reach more people, do subscribe and review this podcast and share it with someone who would benefit from healing and rest. My name is Megan Owen, and thank you for listening to this episode of Pretty Psych. Catch you next episode. And in the meantime, do find healing and do find rest.

July 1, 2026

Give Her Wings: The Story I Couldn't Tell

<h3>ENTER THE DRAWING!! Donate to the Honor Project Movement! https://heatherelizabeth.org/page/support-honor-project-movement</h3> <h3 id="keytakeaways">Key Takeaways:</h3> <ul> <ul> <ul> <li>Elle Arters interviews Megan Owen about Give Her Wings: a nonprofit Megan started.</li> <li>They discuss the impact it has had on them and why Megan left it behind</li> </ul> </ul> </ul> <h3 id="notablequotes">Notable Quotes:</h3> <ul> <ul> <ul> <li>"I know that there [are] probably wisdom and seasons and speaking and not speaking and sharing your story and not sharing your story and deciding when and where and with who. And I just love that this seemed to be the right season and the right people." — Elle Arters</li> <li>"[O]ne of my favorite parts about Give Her Wings was really being, what my friend would call, hands in the dirt. Like not being afraid to drive to go see this woman who was hurting and assess her needs. You know, being able to manage a phone call from a woman who might feel pretty unhinged and feral because she's desperate and not having to judge her." — Megan Owen</li> <li>"Everything was gone. I have no copies of anything that I did. ...if you go to their Facebook page, there are pictures of all of my friends that I did the Academy with. And I'm not in any of those photos. Like, I don't know how to describe that feeling. Like you've been scratched out of something. Like you didn't ever exist." — Megan Owen</li> <li>"...I counted 142 women who reached out to me that I had helped through Give Her Wings. They reached out privately, they sent texts, they shared their stories right there on the [Facebook] post. And something healed in me and just broke open and said, 'Megan, you were erased from all of everything with Give Her Wings, but nothing you did was erased.'" — Megan Owen</li> </ul> </ul> </ul> <h3 id="resources">Resources:</h3> <ul> <ul> <ul> <li>Mountain City Christian Counseling: mountaincitychristiancounseling.com </li> <li>Donate HERE: <a href="https://heatherelizabeth.org/page/support-honor-project-movement">https://heatherelizabeth.org/page/support-honor-project-movement </a></li> <li>See Megan's Facebook Post: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18vsszyjYi/">https://www.facebook.com/share/p/18vsszyjYi/</a> </li> </ul> </ul> </ul> MEGAN: (0:03) This is Pretty Psych, the podcast where we discuss and deconstruct the impact of Evangelical Christianity and cultural phenomena on the psyche, the deep and sometimes uncharted territory of the mind. We venture into raw, rough, and sometimes triggering moments, but we know that through this what we will find will be pretty fascinating, amazing, and pretty intelligent. My name is Megan Owen. I'm a pastoral trauma counselor, and I have spent decades studying the science of human behavior. I draw parallels between therapy and connection to God, self, and others. I love what I do, and I will walk hand in hand with you through the fire to help you find healing and rest. Most importantly, I want to bring you home to yourself.  (1:12) Hi friends, Megan Owen here with Mountain City Christian Counseling. Welcome to Pretty Psych. Of course, I have my dear friend and amazing co-worker/colleague, Elle. Renee Arters here. She's joined me today for a very special podcast. I pitched the idea of talking about something that's been happening not just in my life, but also in Elle's life, and she liked the idea. And then it was actually Elle's idea to say, you know what, why don't we sort of flip the script this time and do something different, and I will interview you, Megan, which I don't think that's ever happened. Maybe a couple times many, many years ago, but I'm excited about this and nervous, of course. Welcome, Elle. ELLE: (1:59) Thank you. Thank you. I mean, I can understand that, of course. You've taught us this, and we all know what it's like to share something that's very vulnerable, and it's very valuable, and I wanted to say right off from the bat, thank you for trusting me with it, and I know you're trusting the audience and the listeners, so thank you for finding us trustworthy, and we're going to be committed to being trustworthy to your story, and thank you for just letting me have the honor and privilege of holding space for you. I do just want to say real quick, I just want to acknowledge, my goodness, you have listened to so many stories from hundreds, thousands, probably, of women at this point, and you just do it so, so well. You always do it without judgment, with belief, and with support, and I just feel really blessed to be able to hold space for you this time, so this hour is yours, and yeah, I'm excited to, I know some of this story, I know there's going to be stuff that I don't know, and I'm excited to hear it all, so are you ready to get started? MEGAN: (3:16) Yes, thank you, Elle. ELLE: (3:17) Okay, we had found out earlier this week that there are some changes going on to a non-profit that we used to be involved in, and more specifically, that a non-profit that you had started way back in 2012 called Give Her Wings, so I would love to hear a little bit more from you on, like, how that all got started. MEGAN: (3:44) In 2011, my kids and I escaped a very abusive relationship in a different country, from a different country, back to the U.S., and I had expected that I might have support from my own family, from my church, from my friends, from people who knew us, and by the time we landed the plane going from Europe to here in Colorado, my kid's father had called my family, told them I was crazy, basically, and I didn't have the support that I had hoped to have. I don't know what I expected, but what I didn't expect was the harassment that I received, the discrediting that happened, the emails, the pastor showing up on my door, and I found myself in a shockingly horrific place and in poverty. Within a year, we were in a better place, the kids and I were, and I had started being open and writing about my story, really based on someone else's counsel to me, because I had been so discredited that I decided and chose to go somewhat public, and what I found were countless women who were going through the same thing, who were being harassed by their churches, who were being told to go back to abusive relationships, who were told that they were not being honest, and that they just wanted an easy way out of the marriage, which is, as you and I both know, that's not an easy way to end a marriage, to take the children and leave and just hope that the courts will believe you when you share your story, right? And so I started writing for another blog that sort of picked up on my story that was pretty popular back then, I don't know if you remember that one, and by that time, I feel like maybe you and I had connected through another small group that we found online, which you and I have talked about before, and that was a lifeline for us, and then while I was writing for this other blog and was kind of finding my sea legs for this new way of living, I decided that I wanted to raise money for one of the mamas who had written in. And so the founder of that blog, that was, you know, we're talking a long time ago when blogs were like a whole big thing, he was in her area, so he went to visit her, sort of vetted her, came back and told me what was going on, and then with a couple of cool cats, we raised $2,000 for her one month. And I was like, oh my gosh, I can raise money for people. ELLE: (6:56) That was fun. MEGAN: (6:58) And we were able to buy, he could buy mattresses for her kids, because I guess they were sleeping on the floor, and it was a home that had, you know, it was mice and just, it was just gross. And so we were able to get them mattresses and blankets, she got a new haircut, she got some new clothes, we helped her get started with a resume, sort of taught her how to break out on her own. And it was thrilling to me, to my soul. It was energizing, I found that I loved it. And then there was another woman the next month, and we did it again. And I feel like we called it something like, she is worthy or something. And then we just kind of started naming the mamas because we didn't want to make it public who they were because of the dangers they were in and the harassment they were receiving. So this kept going for several months. And then eventually, we incorporated into a non-profit called Give Her Wings. And I became the executive director of it. And it was amazing. It was a startup. It was exciting. I never drew a paycheck or anything like that. This was just, I wanted to give to women what I didn't receive. And that was emotional support, financial support. Just people saying, you're not going to hell was a big deal for me. So it was just, it was an amazing experience. And it just kept growing, Elle, as you know, because you were there, you witnessed this whole thing. And some people like kind of fell away because we'd sort of break open and then we'd grow again. And then we would break open a little bit and then we'd grow again. And people sort of came and went. We had a fantastic reputation. We were legit. Financials were public. It was, I loved it. It was wonderful that you and I didn't have anything like this. So I created something like this for other women because it was so devastating to be so alone in that situation. And having been taught that we were, I mean, we were homeschool moms. Yeah. We didn't know we could do hard things yet. We just found ourselves being spiritual widows with orphaned kids. ELLE: (9:20) Yeah, no, that's exactly it. And I forget too at that time, you know, just how few people really understood what we were walking. And so not only are you through Give Her Wings, like not only were you meeting people like practically, you know, through finances and that emotional and physical support, but even just having language like that, just being able to validate and attune what we were experiencing, which was this spiritual widowhood and yeah, like trying to raise orphaned kids, even though, yes, that wasn't literally what our experience was. Just having that language, having somebody who really saw that and creating a space was extraordinary. I remember when you started that. And I think I know we've shared this before. I think we met the year before. I remember when this came kind of into, you know, living in real life, into this, like you said, this like kind of official, you know, incorporated nonprofit. And I even remember becoming a, like a mama, a survivor mama. Yeah, I know there were like different tiers and different needs. And I remember one year in particular, yeah, just to have that community and the support and the encouragement from your other volunteers that were part of the staff. It was just so beautiful. You could feel, you could just feel the compassion and the belief and the trust and the safety. That was just such an extraordinary blessing to have. Not everybody could offer that. So I'm thankful for that. I think it's amazing. I'm saying this because I don't know that I've even slowed down to consider like how much growth and how much you guys were able to do in just a couple of years, because I'm thinking of in 2014. So that was only two years. Yeah, you guys were able to support so many. Now, I know this continued, of course, growing and different ways of expressing that ministry. I remember 2019 is when you had posted about, hey, I've got one, I've got some website needs. Does anybody know how to do anything like that? And I have this idea, this dream for a next huge project for Give Her Wings. So one, I wanted to ask you, I guess, before I get too far ahead. What's curious during that season from 2012 to 2019, if you could just share one or two of your favorite memories or accomplishments, and then maybe that kind of leads into 2019. MEGAN: (11:53) Yeah, so for a long time, it was just three of us. Dawn was our treasurer and Kelly was our creative director. And then I did basically everything else, all the fundraising. And during that time, I mean, the whole thing, I got to experience growth and come up with that language also. Like people didn't know you could divorce somebody for abuse and still be a Christian, you know, like I didn't know that. And this is just the paradigms in which we all were, which were really quite fundamental, conservative, that sort of thing. And I didn't use the word cult for a long time. I didn't even use the word abuse when I left. I just knew I was dying inside and my kids were being hurt. And so, you know, all of that, I got to grow. The three of us had a great time and then things shifted. They just kept shifting and changing. And then we had volunteers and I loved having the volunteers. I think as far as memories, I guess sort of overarching, one of my favorite parts about Give Her Wings was really being what my friend would call hands in the dirt. Like not being afraid to drive to go see this woman who was hurting and assess her needs. You know, being able to manage a phone call from a woman who might feel pretty unhinged and feral because she's desperate and not having to judge her. Just having permission to be at mercy ministry. End of story. And not, you know, not saying, oh, well, is she, you know, it sounds like she's crying in front of her kids or it sounds like she's, you know, she's had to do some pretty desperate things to make money. And that doesn't seem, you know, just we threw all that out the window and said, we're not, we're just not going to judge. Our whole job is just to love these women. And so, you know, some of those earlier stories really stick out. I remember a woman in Maine whose children needed blankets. And I had a friend in Maine and that friend went over and saw her and she was like, yes, this woman is, they're cold. And so to be able to share a story and say, hey, we have a woman whose children are cold. And we got her blankets and that one of those kids was maybe 2 years old. He went on to college because of that experience. He went on to college and studied nonprofits and started his own. ELLE: (14:36) Oh, wow. MEGAN: (14:37) So that's, you know, just those things. Yes. We paid a chunk of bills for women who needed to keep their heat on or have their rent and all of that. But those little things that just were moments of desperation where we could be like the Holy Spirit and Ezer Kanigdo into their situation to give them what they needed at the last second. That was my favorite part, I think. ELLE: (15:03) I can totally see that. That's beautiful. And yeah, I can't really honor you enough and say thank you enough for how much you, how fiercely you love. It's so genuine and how like you were saying, just how you were willing to do that without judgment. It was you have been one of the least judgmental people I have ever met. It has been healing for me personally. It's healing to watch it. And I think alongside of that, I just think of all these stories that you're sharing right now, my own and just others, just how much dignity you've brought to them too. And we're at our personal lows of lows when you're a mom who can't even like, you're struggling to find blankets and you're struggling to keep the electricity on and the heat on and some of these basic needs for your children. And you know the background noise of what people are thinking and to have somebody come in and just offer full acceptance with that dignity. Yeah, I just wanted to take a moment as I was jumping out at me just to honor that. MEGAN: (16:14) Yeah, like we give with dignity. We have to give with dignity. And the reason that people don't always feel judgment for me, I'm sure sometimes they do, is because I was so harshly judged during this time. And when I was given things, it would be a bag of clothes left on my front porch for my kids. And it was clearly, you know, holes in the jeans or canned food that people didn't want. You know, like a pastor brought his two kids over to bring us a pizza that didn't even feed all of us. And the daughter, he brought the daughter over so she could experience what it's like to not be privileged. Wow. And so those experiences stayed with me. And so it was so important to teach everyone to give with honor and dignity, never judging, never judging. And that's why, that's why I did it that way. Because I know how it feels. And I know you do too. I know you do too. ELLE: (17:23) Yeah, it was definitely an eye-opening experience into like just a poor community or a needy community. Yeah, I think it was eye-opening to see in our circles. Yeah, our judgments, our thoughts on why or how a person finds themselves in a needy position. And we realized just recognizing how you can be there for all kinds of reasons and it doesn't take away from the inherent value you still bring, of course. And that that should be matched as well. So yeah. MEGAN: (18:02) Single moms leaving abuse in those cultures, there's a learned helplessness that we have. And that's not a, that is not a condemnation. We don't know yet what we're capable of. And so I saw Give Her Wings as a bridge. Okay, we're going to help you and then show you what you're capable of. ELLE: (18:20) So yeah, I love these stories. I remember a lot of these stories. But I'm curious, when did you kind of see maybe some shifts or changes happening behind the scenes in Give Her Wings? There is kind of a temperate, you know, temperature shift or a change away from its mission or attitudes or I don't know. Tell me a little bit about that. MEGAN: (18:44) Well, we had grown quite a bit by, you know, 25,000 followers. By then I had developed the Give Her Wings Academy, which you and I did work day and night. My gosh, you and I put so much time and effort into that, Elle. And that was in an effort to have steady donation income because I was doing all of the everything. And I was getting burned out just working 24-7 for donations. And this created, you know, I think a good income of like $3,000 a month by the time I left in order to keep it going. But it was about a year before I left, there had been a couple of people brought onto our board who were more on the conservative side. They seemed to have a heart for moms, but were not trauma-informed, did not ever experience what we had experienced. They were complementarian. And so I started noticing that temperature shift. We brought both of them onto the board, which I wish I had never allowed to happen because they outnumbered people pretty quickly. And then with that, I saw more from that same pocket, from that same area, they were coming in on the board, wanting to bring in their own volunteers. And the mission started to become lost. And I found myself going from passionate ambassador for those who were hurting to trying to keep the board happy, trying to keep our constituents happy, trying to take care of our mamas and their kids, trying to keep our volunteers motivated. And I discovered that everyone was my boss and I was exhausted. And the big mistake was kind of bringing, allowing a married couple onto the board, but also just kind of letting everyone have their own ideas of egalitarian or complementarianism or whatever, actually created more of a problem than I realized because while I was over here thinking, yeah, everyone gets to have their own opinion, they were thinking everybody needs to have our opinion. And so they kind of seemed to set about on this mission of transforming this hands in the dirt mercy ministry into something that in their mind was more biblical. And as a result, the mercy ministry lost its mercy and I could feel it. And then there were whisperings. And as much as I tried to keep communication open, I could see what was coming. And so that was during the time where we were putting the academy together as soon as it was running smoothly and this was new. No one had created an advocacy course. This was the first one that we knew of like this. And once there was enough kind of going into the coffers of the nonprofit, that's when I stepped down. I had lost that sense of passion because the exciting real true passionate ministry had been replaced by people who were conservative and stuck. And you just can't always bring something back to life when people's egos and power get in the way. And that's what happened. So I took a course on transitioning well. I helped them to find, we actually hired somebody from the volunteer board who had finished her degree in sociology and was an advocate in her, a woman's advocate for the police station in her area. And she was young and had fresh ideas and it was exciting. And she came here to Colorado and I trained her over a weekend and walked with her and did my best to make the transition graceful, which people have told me that's how it came across because I still wanted women to get what they needed. And I still believed in it, hoped in the mission, felt that this with this new executive director, she was on board, but this couple had so infiltrated every area that they'd already been in contact with her. So you can imagine like the pain I felt when I took her to the airport where I thought she was going back home to Washington. And instead she went straight to that couple's house where they retrained her. And so that was very painful. And during that time, Elle, I was going through another huge life crisis of my second husband leaving us. ELLE: (23:52) Yeah, when I think back 2019 to 2021, you had like a very intense two year period. Give Her Wings was strong and it was doing well and he had just kind of produced this academy. So offering this whole other additional support, transitioned it. I can't imagine how like shocking and confusing maybe, I don't wanna put words in your mouth before your life kind of changed in 2021. Can you share just a little bit about how you process that transition knowing afterwards like, oh, this did not transition the way I thought it was going to. MEGAN: (24:32) I think in a lot of ways, I kind of put it away. Because I was working some hard jobs, COVID hit. I was a chaplain in the hospital during that time. And I just stopped looking at everything. I couldn't look. I think I just was like, okay, God, you're doing this, you're in charge. I've stepped back, it's not my baby anymore. I need to not be involved so they can make healthy transitions because I learned that that's how you do it. You're out of the picture, totally fine with me. But then what started happening was kind of soul crushing. So after I was a chaplain, I started working at the suicide hotline for Colorado during COVID, there was a need. I wanted to help a woman who had called in and she was a Christian. And I was like, I know the ministry for you. So I went to the website and I couldn't find all my years of blog posts. You know, I don't know, seven, ten years of everything that was out there to help people that I worked so hard on that I poured my life's blood into. I couldn't find anything that had to do with anything I had done. But all of everything that I had written, all the art that I had done, all of the course, everything was there. But I had been erased from the website. And it was just this wave of re-traumatization. I don't know how to describe it. My friend, Sarah McDougall mentioned yesterday that it was like, she said, when you are erased and your intellectual property is being used and you see it everywhere. I saw it everywhere on other people's pages that I didn't know. It does something to you. Again, that sort of, I'm not a real person type of feeling. I don't know how else to describe it. I remember sitting there and just putting my hand on my face saying, I'm still here. I am still here. And then that just kind of started this shocking. I reached out to that couple and they were like, oh yeah, it was a misunderstanding. It was just gone. Everything was gone. I have no copies of anything that I did. And then I would see, like if you go to their Facebook page, there are pictures of all of my friends that I did the Academy with. And I'm not in any of those photos. Like, I don't know how to describe that feeling. Like you've been scratched out of something. Like you didn't ever exist. ELLE: (27:23) Yeah, of course. Yeah, it's so bewildering. So bewildering to hear you share that. And I can only imagine, of course, what it was like to be living it. I was thinking on it a little bit. Like I would assume, when you were transitioning, giver wings from your hands to somebody else's, I mean, we can see, and you spoke to, of course, like how valuable the nonprofit was, every individual woman and her children. When you say it's your baby, the focus isn't like on the possession. It's because the baby is so valuable, right? I'm certain that when you transition that, you assumed, of course, these people are going to value this baby as much as you do. And they're going to do different things. They're going to have different visions. And that part's fine. Yeah, but that whole entity in itself was what's so valuable. You were transitioning that with respect and trust in those people. And it struck me that they didn't just transition from you, but kind of just full-on abandoned you. And of course, that would be jarring. That would be unexpected. That would be confusing. And then, of course, as a survivor who's already experienced this kind of betrayal with people that you trust, with your community, having already gone through that lift, through that, to have to do it a second time is just, like you said, soul-wrenching. But then to also have that experience with people who were trained to know exactly how to care for someone in this situation. It's so disorienting, to say the least. I know the intensity felt far more than just that. But it would seem to me to be so incredibly disorienting. And painful and hurtful. I was thinking too, I know you had referenced 2021 and life kind of exploding for a second time for you. Can you share a little bit about what happened in 2021 and how that related with your Give Her Wings experience? MEGAN: (29:39) So David left us in 2021. Our marriage had completely disintegrated. It was COVID or the tail end of it. And just because by the nature of him having been their stepfather, there was no real spousal support or anything like that. Hear this man and told me I never want you to have to work. I never want you to have to work for money. You know, I always support you and there I was, you know, thankfully I'd done my CPE chaplaincy training and I did have my education and, you know, all my qualifications to do the things that I am doing now. But there were a couple of really scary months in there and we were at ground zero again financially. And, you know, it's interesting as I didn't ask them for help financially. I needed it and I wanted to. All I asked is that they share one of my posts for the practice I was starting. That's what happened. And they just, they just wouldn't help me. And that's when I knew, wow, like if they can do this to me, they've lost their heart. It just felt like the ultimate betrayal. I never asked anybody for anything except that. And then of course, my close friends got together and raised money for me. That was where I got to experience what our mamas experienced, which is here's a chunk, here's an encouragement. And we believe in you. It was more emotional than anything. I mean, we needed the finances, but the emotional piece was we believe in you and we support you and you're not alone in this. And that was enough to say for me to say to myself, I am clawing my way out of this pit. That's what I'm doing. And I wanted to be responsible with what I'd been given. And that's what happened. Now, I forgot about this, but actually Heather Elizabeth's group did something similar for me a couple months later on a smaller scale, but it made a difference. It made a huge difference. It was so encouraging. So I got to, I got to receive not from the entity I had started and founded, but from my friends. And that was powerful. That was so powerful. ELLE: (32:24) It is so bewildering because I remember that. I remember hearing, I mean, I had a whole bunch of feelings and thoughts, but one of my immediate, and I do not mean to make this about me, but one of my immediate responses was, Oh my gosh. Well, okay. We need a rally immediately because one, I mean, obviously like I know what that's like. I would want to do that, but, but even more so like, well, of course we're going to rally around Megan. She's the one who's been doing this for hundreds of other women. Like this isn't even, this is a no brainer. This is just an instinct. This is just a response. Like, of course we're going to do that. And I'm super grateful that I got to see other friends behind the scenes that were like, Oh yeah, absolutely. And they jumped on board with that same desire to love and support and encourage and speak truth and speak dignity and speak everything you just said. Gosh, that was only like six months, six to eight months after I left Give Her Wings. So it's pretty shocking even for me to know, like, how did we go from at least on paper, at least like we were still serving people, you know, for sure. When, when I was there, but to then go from, from that to, I don't know, hearing your story and there's not that instinct on their end to want to help and to help the one who founded it. I'm not doing a very good job explaining it, but I, I just witnessed the, the, the shocking kind of hypocrisy and the lack of care and compassion. It's so jarring for you to be right back and not back, but for you to be in that clear position of need that this ministry is supposed to minister to and having been the founder of it and for them to turn their backs and walk away and say, no, no, thanks is, I just don't have the words. MEGAN: (34:31) I'm glad you're saying this. No, I, this, this hits you too. And all of the people who served with me, who are looking at it now, who, who also reached out to me in the past couple of days and, and shared their own stories of things that I hadn't been aware of about how they were disappeared from their position all of a sudden with no explanation and just the, with coldness and a lack of care and just in a power trippy way. No, this affected you too, because the work we were doing was real. You saw me like almost every day I felt like, and I was doing this, I'm dealing with this. And, you know, like it was, it was very personal, I think, which is why it was such a wonderful experience because there was no veneer of anything. What we were doing on the inside did match the outside. And so that was shocking for you. That was very painful, no doubt. And yet we look at all these stories, you know, we, you and I have t-shirts or hoodies or something that have all of the names on the back of it, of the women that we served. We get to have that experience. That will never leave us. ELLE: (35:50) Yeah. Thank you. Were you able to get to a resolution of sorts or is it kind of like our, yeah, like the other, other times in your life, right? MEGAN: (36:01) There's no resolution. I didn't reach out to, and, you know, I would reach out when something would happen. Like I got a message from somebody a couple years ago who said, Hey, have you heard of this nonprofit Give Her Wings? It was spearheaded by this couple. And, you know, that maybe you could join with them. And I just wanted to scream. ELLE: (36:25) That is wild. Yeah. MEGAN: (36:31) And I reached out to the couple and they were, they got defensive. Like they didn't even say, you know, it just, there's been no resolution until a couple days ago. Oh, what was it the day before yesterday? I haven't had peace about it. I've had a lot of anger, which is just to cover for my grief and pain. Just like you just said, it was so well stated. It wasn't, it wasn't that I owned it. It was that it seemed like they took that baby and said, we need to make this baby into a conservative cookie cutter nonprofit. And they took out anything that was merciful. They don't believe women now they say, well, did that come from a credible source? These are the stories that I hear now. There's nothing personal.: This couple went behind the scenes. You don't see them, you know? And so it just, it just, it felt violating and I managed to be okay. Most of the time, you know, obviously I rebuilt again and here we are having rebuilt. Finally, I'm finally able to even stop and think and talk about this, but a couple of days ago and you saw this and you supported me and you helped me reword it. And, you know, just a couple of days ago, I was able to make this post and share my story on social media. And I honestly wondered like, is anybody even going to see it? Am I going to get backlash for it? And instead I counted 142 women who reached out to me that I had helped through Give Her Wings. They reached out privately, they sent texts, they shared their stories right there on the, on the post. And, and something healed in me and just broke open and said, Megan, you were erased from all of everything with Give Her Wings, but nothing you did was erased. Nothing you did was erased. In fact, there was a woman who shared a story about a piece of art that I think I sent her and then she sent to someone and that person started their own ministry. And then there was, they were all these people who started their own nonprofits because they took my course and women who were helped who are now like thriving with their kids. It's like they just all got on there and decided they were going to remind me of the work that I did. ELLE: (39:20) I'm so sad to know for how many years you went invalidated and questioning and questioning. Like, I think what I did was purposeful. I'm pretty sure I have these memories and that's real, but to have the leadership and the voice for Give Her Wings essentially mirrored back a completely distorted reality and a distorted truth about who you are and in your role in it. Yeah, I can imagine how quiet and just kind of desolate feeling that may have been. And I know I had, I had texted with over the last couple of days in response to all that, just seeing story after story after story, being able to speak back to essentially the lies that were being communicated either directly or indirectly with words or without words to you, but to have all these, all these words of truth showing up and just honoring and thanking you for everything that you did. And I know I shared with you too, like just your partnership with the Lord, your availability to that. And like, here's my gifts and strengths and here, and Lord, I trust that you can do even beyond what I could do in my own strength. And like, that's what was striking me too, when I got to read through some of those posts, like in one that you just shared, you know, you, you painted something, you ministered to this one woman who then took it and did something else with it and then took it and did something else with it. And that's, that's like, that's that joy and excitement of doing something like this with the author, the source of life. It was like, oh, I can, you know, I can multiply this so over and over and yeah, to, to know like that's part of your legacy is beautiful. I know that there is probably wisdom and seasons and speaking and not speaking and sharing your story and not sharing your story and deciding when and where and with who. And I just love that this seemed to be the right season and the right people. MEGAN: (41:27) I wanted women to be helped. I saw every once in a while that somebody was being helped. I didn't want to mess with that if people were getting what they needed. And now it seems as though Give Her Wings is being absorbed into another entity or something like that. And it's just not what it was. And so because of that, I do feel like I can be open. I just didn't expect the outpouring. I think I thought there was some sort of like element of shame because that's, that's how they made me feel. When I reached out to see if they could just share about Mountain City Christian Counseling, and they wouldn't. It was, there was just this shameful tint to the way they spoke to me. And then I'd been erased. And that's, that's how it feels. You feel like, wow, that was so easy for them to just discard me. And that's when I realized firsthand that they'd lost any mercy or grace that, that they had had before. And yeah, it's been five, six years. I don't know how long it's been, but this is the right time. I did need to know what I was made of and what I could do with very little support. And of course, Elle, you don't like me to make a big deal about this, but you were one of the few who supported me. Like I could call and, or I could text. I never call. ELLE: (42:57) I’d pick up a phone for you. MEGAN: (43:02) You'd be like, she's, she's dying. It's an emergency. She's calling me. But yeah, so yes. So I could text you. I could reach out. I couldn't give very much at the time cause I mean, two jobs and eye tumor and kids and all the things I was dealing with, but boy, when I needed it, you were there, you were always there. And a couple other people were always there and it, that's all it takes. I swear one, two, three friends that see you and know who you are.: Like actually like you saw me at my worst and you still know who I am. You know that my motivation is good, you know, like, yeah. So that was powerful. That's carried me. It's carried me. ELLE: (43:50) Gosh. Well, thank you for sharing all that with us. And thank you for just pouring out your heart. And I know I've said it a handful of times, but thank you for your, yours also one of the most generous people. I know you, you give time, you give your talents, you give, like I said, you give your heart, you give your muscles. And I'm, I was just delighted to know that people were giving their things to you for that. And, and I'm confident, like I, I'm excited just to continue to see what you do. You're always, you're full of ideas and you've always got new projects and creative ways to keep doing what you started with at Give Her Wings because it was an organic ministry. Like I said, it's an organic ministry that, that came from your heart and your heart with God. And that never ends whether or not it's labeled, you know, with Give Her Wings or it's labeled with another nonprofit or it's labeled with another company or whatever it is. Yeah. That heart of mercy and leadership and the faith I think that you instill in people keeps going. So I'm excited still to see what else is coming after this season. MEGAN: (45:07) Well, we're doing it together. We're doing it together, Elle. You're a huge encouragement to me always. And I, you know, I, if you guys want to see my post, you can head on over to my page on Facebook and read what I wrote, which felt very brave at the time. The other thing I want to mention is that I have a painting that we're going to share of a woman who is just openly receiving grace and mercy, like it's water being poured from heaven. I'm having it framed and I am going to give it away to people who decide to donate to a nonprofit that I really can get behind. I know Heather Elizabeth, nothing has been compromised. She has managed to keep the vision the whole time. And she helps single mothers who are leaving abuse and who are being harassed by churches and family. And, and it's called the Honor Project Movement. And we will put the links here. But you can go to heatherelizabeth.org and pledge to be a monthly supporter of single moms who are leaving abuse like Elle and I were 15 years ago. And you'll be entered into a drawing to win this painting that you will see attached here. And so, you know, we're going to take the next, I don't know, month from until end of July. And then we're going to have one of Heather's grandkids draw a name from a bowl to win this painting. So please go over and make a monthly pledge. You will not regret it. You'll get to see all the cool things that she does locally and nationally. She gets, even gets crisis counseling help for these women. And sometimes she goes through Mountain City Christian counseling. So that's pretty cool too. So yeah. ELLE: (47:13) That's so great. That's exciting. Well, thank you again. Thank you for sharing your story. It deserved to live outside your body. You know, you experienced it and then it deserves to be processed just like the rest of our stories have needed that. And you deserve that too. And I'm so grateful that you shared it with us. And thank you for letting me do this. That was fun. Thank you for letting me be the interviewer this time. MEGAN: (47:41) It's really unusual for me to be able to share a story. And I don't know why I think everyone else gets to, and I don't, you know, so it's really healing for me to be able to do this. All those stories I received plus this right here has done something for me. I'm not ever going to be the same. So thank you for letting me release that  Elle and for just being there and knowing me and always being with me. Thank you. I love you so much.  ELLE: (48:15) All right. Thank you. MEGAN: (48:18) I hope this conversation has encouraged deep thought as well as helped you draw parallels between therapy and your connection to God's self and others. If you'd like some one-on-one time with me, unpacking some of your most precious life stories to find healing and rest, contact me on mountaincitychristiancounseling.com. To help this podcast reach more people, do subscribe and review this podcast and share it with someone who would benefit from healing and rest. My name is Megan Owen, and thank you for listening to this episode of Pretty Psych. Catch you next episode. And in the meantime, do find healing and do find rest.

34 total episodes available

Recent guests on Pretty Psych

Guests from recent episodes — sign up to see every guest that has ever appeared on this show.

Karen DeArmond Gardner

Guest

See every guest on Pretty Psych

Similar Podcasts

Discover related shows you might enjoy

Flying Free

Natalie Hoffman

The Roys Report

Julie Roys

Bodies Behind The Bus

Good Faith

Typology

Ian Morgan Cron

This American Life

The Ezra Klein Show

New York Times Opinion

Deep-dive analytics for Pretty Psych

Frequently asked questions

Have a different question and can't find the answer you're looking for? Reach out to our support team by sending us an email and we'll get back to you as soon as we can.

What is Pretty Psych?: Megan Owen, from Mountain City Christian Counseling, discusses deconstruction and deep, (often uncharted) psychology. Raw and rough, at times. Also, pretty fascinating, pretty amazing, pretty intelligent… We are Pretty Psych!
How often does this podcast release new episodes?: This podcast updates bi-weekly.
Where can I listen to this podcast?: This podcast is available on 6 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
Does this podcast accept guests?: Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.

Legal Disclaimer

Pod Engine is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or officially connected with any of the podcasts displayed on this platform. We operate independently as a podcast discovery and analytics service.

All podcast artwork, thumbnails, and content displayed on this page are the property of their respective owners and are protected by applicable copyright laws. This includes, but is not limited to, podcast cover art, episode artwork, show descriptions, episode titles, transcripts, audio snippets, and any other content originating from the podcast creators or their licensors.

We display this content under fair use principles and/or implied license for the purpose of podcast discovery, information, and commentary. We make no claim of ownership over any podcast content, artwork, or related materials shown on this platform. All trademarks, service marks, and trade names are the property of their respective owners.

While we strive to ensure all content usage is properly authorized, if you are a rights holder and believe your content is being used inappropriately or without proper authorization, please contact us immediately at hey@podengine.ai for prompt review and appropriate action, which may include content removal or proper attribution.

By accessing and using this platform, you acknowledge and agree to respect all applicable copyright laws and intellectual property rights of content owners. Any unauthorized reproduction, distribution, or commercial use of the content displayed on this platform is strictly prohibited.