Ep. 248 - Angela Thompson "Worst T*ts Ever" pt. 1

[00:00:00] And I remember telling my boyfriend at the time, I said, I need to forgive God, but I don't know how. And he just prayed this very simple prayer and he said, God, I forgive you. And I repeated it, God, I forgive you. And like this peace just washed over my spirit. And I can tell you, John, like nowhere in my theology framework up to that point is there a place for forgiving God because God doesn't do

[00:00:24] anything wrong, right? So if we're angry at him, then that's our fault and our problem. And I just realized through that whole process of first of all, acknowledging my anger towards him, realizing that I needed to forgive him in order to get through, through that emotion to the next level of my healing. It was really an incredible thing to realize God is big enough for us not only to be angry at him, but us to forgive him, even if he is perfect. And how critical and important in healing

[00:00:53] that was for me. Welcome to the Deconstructionists. I'm your host, John Williamson. And before we get into today's conversation, I want to take a moment to tell you about something new that we've been building and what comes next for this community. As many of you know, as I've mentioned the last few weeks, after more than a decade of making The Deconstructionists, we'll stop producing new episodes at the end of this year. But this isn't really an ending. It's more of a

[00:01:22] transition. Our new podcast, This Is Who We Become, is the natural next chapter of the conversations we've been having here the past 10 years. We'll still explore the experiences that challenge what people believe, reshape how they see the world, and change the direction of their lives. But we'll be opening that conversation to an even wider range of voices and stories. Every life has a before, and every life has an after. This Is Who We Become will feature conversations with survivors,

[00:01:52] scientists, explorers, physicians, and ordinary people who have lived through extraordinary moments, and emerged with a different understanding of themselves and the world around them. Over the coming weeks and months, we'll be giving you some early sneak peeks at the kinds of conversations you can expect from the new show, including today's interview, so you can get a taste of where we're headed. We already have some truly remarkable guests lined up, and we'll begin

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[00:02:47] together here into the next chapter. Today's guest is Angela Harger-Thompson, author of the fiercely honest, darkly funny, and unforgettable new memoir, Worst Hits Ever. Angela's story includes experiences that are incredibly difficult to talk about. Being drugged and sexually assaulted, surviving an abusive relationship, and finding herself trapped on a boat with a man she increasingly understood she

[00:03:12] was not safe with. But this is not simply a conversation about what happened to Angela. It's about what it takes to recognize abuse when you're living inside it, how trauma can reshape the stories we tell about ourselves, and the long, complicated process of reclaiming your body, your voice, and your life. It's also about the role that faith, shame, silence, and the expectations placed on women can play in keeping painful truths buried. And what can happen when someone finally

[00:03:41] decides to tell the truth out loud? A brief content note before we begin, this conversation includes discussions of sexual assault, abusive relationships, trauma, and survival. Please take care of yourself as you listen. Angela approaches her story with an extraordinary vulnerability, courage, and humor. I'm deeply grateful that she trusted us with it. So here is part one of my

[00:04:05] conversation with Angela Harger-Thompson. All right, welcome to the podcast. I'm super excited to have Angela Thompson on with me today. Thank you so much for spending some time with me. Thank you for having me here, John. Absolutely. First of all, I got to give you kudos. It might fend some folks, I don't know,

[00:04:31] but like best book title we've had on so far. We've had some good ones, but worst hits ever has got to be up there. Like kudos on that. Thank you. Yeah, there's a whole story of how we got to that title. Yeah, we'll get to that for sure. Like I got to know the story behind that. But before we jump in too far, tell people a little bit about who you are and sort of what you do.

[00:04:57] Yeah, so I am a filmmaker, an author, and a storyteller. And I moved out to LA 2015 to pursue my dreams. And I was like, I don't want to be an 80-year-old woman and say, oh, you know, I never actually tried. So I packed my Honda Civic and drove across the country, started auditioning in Los Angeles and just going to casting director workshops, taking acting classes.

[00:05:23] And I was positive I was going to be on the cover of People magazine within two years. So it was a very, very ambitious timeline. But I kind of discovered very quickly how tough the industry is and how long of a journey it would take to get to what I had envisioned in my head for my dreams. And it's been a long journey that's really metamorphosized over time, where I just kind of moved out to LA to be an actor and then realized that what I am is a

[00:05:53] storyteller and that that has manifest in a lot of different mediums and ways beyond just an actor who has a script. Yeah, absolutely. Tell people a little bit about like what sort of religious background do you have? Like were you raised particularly religious or was that something you sort of encountered later in life?

[00:06:15] I was a Christian homeschooler. So public schools were evil and a very evangelical family. But I'm very grateful because my parents did have a relationship with the Lord. So even though I grew up in a culture with a lot of rules and a lot of legalism that certainly affected me, I think at the

[00:06:41] core, I could always see the truth of their relationship with God and that that rang true in my spirit. And so even though I was, I have had quite a spiritual journey and I've, you know, shed a lot of skin, I guess I could say, in my spiritual process, like I've always maintained a relationship with God. And so I'm very grateful for that example that my parents said, even when there were a lot of things mixed in there,

[00:07:08] especially from the homeschool community, that I would later come to find out aren't really in the Bible. You know, it's not really the things of the Lord, you know, like one of the things I couldn't even wear a shirt if it showed my stomach when I raised my arms above my head. Like sometimes before I left the house, I would have to raise my hands over my head to see if my stomach showed. And just like that created such a sense of shame in me, like my stomach is bad. It can't be shown.

[00:07:39] And I was very self-conscious about certain things. And really kind of like the rules kept me safe, you know, the rules keep you out of trouble. And that followed me really, I ended up going to the New York Film Academy after I graduated college. And that was the first time that I would say that I was exposed to the world. Because, you know, I'd been homeschooled, I'd gone to a small Christian college.

[00:08:04] And when I was at the New York Film Academy, I just met people from all over the world, all different walks of life. I was in their films, we were creating art all over New York. And they had such different ideas on the world, especially from being from European countries. And they were like flabbergasted that I grew up around guns in Texas, you know, and it was such a clash of cultures. But it was opening up my world and it was expanding.

[00:08:30] Oh, wow, like there's so much more out there than I've ever seen or been aware of. And I liked it. Like it really started to shake me from a lot of the legalism and rule-centric environment that I had grown up in. And then, you know, that was going to be continued to be tested as life happened.

[00:08:52] Because I think that a lot of times your faith, I found for myself, my faith just wasn't big enough for the situations that I was encountering in life. It grew way too small for things that were, you know, significant challenges and traumas. Yeah, I think a lot of people listening can definitely relate with that.

[00:09:16] I think, you know, when life hits you in the face, you oftentimes have to examine your faith. And is it strong enough? Is it big enough? As you said, I like that. To handle the things that you will encounter inevitably in life. Life is not easy. And so it's interesting, you know, if you have a sort of house of cards, you know, situation, you know, that's your theology, your life of faith. And oftentimes it falls down, you know.

[00:09:43] And so I'm sure that, you know, we'll get into talking about some of the instances that maybe like tested the foundations a little bit. And so let's talk about you mentioned before we started recording that a good place to start would be kind of helps set the stage for the rest of what we'll talk about.

[00:10:02] But is a very traumatic, potentially, event that occurred out in L.A. and would certainly be something that would be a test of somebody's, you know, faith or beliefs. Yeah. So two months after I arrived in L.A. with my packed Honda Civic, I met a producer in the industry who was going to give me a job as his assistant. And so I met with him several times.

[00:10:28] And at one of those meetings, I was trying to get a handle on what the job was, what I'd be doing exactly day to day. And it always was kind of confusing and not clear. And on one of those meetings, he said, you know, a lot of women get drugged out here and raped in L.A. So if you ever find yourself in a situation that makes you uncomfortable, you call me. I'll come get you no matter what. And it was like this very false sense of trust that he was establishing with him.

[00:10:57] And I didn't have any terms or any experience to understand that he was grooming me. So eventually he took me out to dinner. I was supposed to start the job the next day. So we were going to go to dinner and discuss the details. And I was kind of really hoping to wrap my head around this job because it sounded great and the pay sounded great. But I didn't even understand what it was supposed to be. And he ended up drugging me, raping me and strangling me.

[00:11:27] So I woke up eight hours later in a room that I didn't recognize. I was completely naked. He was lying beside me, naked. And I just had this intense desire to cover myself. The first thing I did was look for my clothes. And I wasn't thinking logically. I was like, he can't see me naked. I have to cover myself. I wasn't thinking. I've been naked, you know.

[00:11:55] So I put my clothes back on and I woke him up and I started demanding answers. And I was like, what happened? What went on? Because I was a virgin and I was saving myself for marriage. And I could not have been raped. Like I had to not have been raped. But I had no memory whatsoever. There was literally eight hours that were missing from my life.

[00:12:22] And, you know, he just kind of started talking and acting like it had been a wild night of drinking. And he was obviously not answering my questions or giving me what I needed. And I demanded that he let me out. The room that I was in was actually locked with a deadbolt. So he produced a set of keys. He unlocked it. And I walked outside into the sunrise. And I remember the last memory that I had was sitting at the bar of this restaurant the night before.

[00:12:52] So, you know, it was a solid several hours later. And I'm so glad I thought to call my mom. And I just told her something happened to me. I don't know what happened to me, but something bad happened. And so she told me to go to the hospital. Hmm.

[00:13:11] I'm just, I couldn't help but think about the psychological aspect to the fact that he sort of, before this horrific, you know, situation occurs, like he's using the situation itself to like instill this false sense of confidence. And like, just how twisted just that alone is, you know, aside from the act itself. Like, so did you ever, you know, was there any justice in the situation?

[00:13:40] Did he ever, you know, after the hospital, you know, did you ever press charges, that sort of thing?

[00:14:14] Yeah. And the government is running one. The help center there in Los Angeles, um, that did all the testing. And, you know, I had this huge moral dilemma because they offered me as well, um, as the antibiotics, they offered me the morning after pill. and I have always been very pro-life and I understand the value of life no matter how it comes about, but I was actually faced with having to make that decision

[00:14:42] after being raped and having this attacker whose baby I would never want to have. And so that was an excruciating decision, but I decided not to take it. And so that was a very long time to wait until my next period came because I had chosen, I just knew that I couldn't live with that decision and it would be easier to live with a child should that happen. So then after the rape center,

[00:15:11] they took me to the police station where I was interrogated for hours and they really treated me more like I was the one that had committed the crime than the one reporting it. And at one point, I remember there was a female detective and she looked at my neck and she said, well, how do we even know that you were strangled? That looks like a hickey mark to me. So it was so invalidating and such victim blaming of like,

[00:15:38] we're not believing the story you're telling us. And I'm just, I told her medical professionals are the one that told me that I've been strangled. Like, this is not me just showing up here saying this. And at one point, I had to call my attacker on a recorded line and with the police present trying to get an admission out of him. And he, of course, played it off and was just laughing and saying it was a wild night of drinking and one thing had led to another. But, you know,

[00:16:08] I knew that one thing would not have led to another, that I had had a very strict decision to remain, you know, to not have premarital sex. And so I knew that having a one night stand with someone because I had too much to drink was not even in the realm of possibility. And I'm sitting there having to explain this to police officers who are sitting there not believing me. First of all, not believing that I'm a virgin up to this point,

[00:16:36] not believing my account of what happened. And I had done all of this in the hopes that I could make sure that he never did this again to another woman. That's why I reported him. That's why I sat there and smelled like his cologne for six hours in that interrogation room when all I wanted to do was to go home and shower. And there was a very lengthy investigation that took place after that. They brought him in for questioning. They had a search warrant for the crime scene.

[00:17:06] And nine months later, they come back and they say, you know, rape is a he said, she said. And there's just, there's no way. He says he didn't do it. And you would make a really bad witness because you can't remember anything. So we're not going to prosecute him. And that was so devastating because I'd done everything quote unquote right. You know, I'd gone in, I'd reported, I'd sat there, I'd given them everything. And, you know, it became very evident

[00:17:36] as time went on, as my body wasn't in complete shock anymore, that I had been raped, that, you know, that had happened, even though I had no memory of it. The body keeps the score. And so it was, it was very frustrating to not be able to have any earthly justice and also to not be able to do my part to ensure that he couldn't do that to another woman. Oh my gosh.

[00:18:05] It's, it's horrific to hear like all the things that they say, you know, law enforcement should not do. It sounds like they did all of those things, like the things that you see on TV and you're like, surely we're past that at this point. But what, what year was this? If you don't mind me asking, like. This was in 2015 when I first moved out to LA. Yeah. And one thing I was grateful for with the state of California was that even though

[00:18:34] the DA wasn't going to prosecute my attacker, I was set up with the victim's compensation program, which I got an advocate through that program and they were able to give me, I believe it was 60 sessions of therapy and I was able to choose my therapist and I went every week and honestly, John, I could have gone twice a week, three times a week. Like it was, I was processing so many things and dealing with so many things and everything in the aftermath was a struggle from dealing with the police

[00:19:03] to the STD clinic to the gynecologist that I had to go to afterwards. Nothing came easily and I was kind of re-traumatized through the process of trying to heal everything I did to try to heal from my trauma. And I just remember, I think the most devastating part for me was this betrayal that I felt from God. Like I remember just sitting there telling him, I followed the rules. I did everything that I was supposed to do

[00:19:32] and then you let this happen to me. You know, I was pure. I saved myself and you let this happen. And my therapist sat across from me and she was like, well, it sounds like you were playing a game with God, but he wasn't playing that game, Angela. It was just you. And, you know, I was like, that was a really profound moment for me to realize because I think you grow up in this culture that you do everything right, then you're going to get married and you're going to have

[00:20:01] the most amazing sex ever with your husband and it's going to be so pure and so beautiful because you've done everything right. And here I am, a complete wreck because I did everything right and then I got raped, you know? Yeah, purity culture doesn't do a very good job of covering that scenario, does it? No. They raise you up to tell you like, listen, you have to keep yourself pure.

[00:20:30] And my other favorite, and I'm obviously being sarcastic here, part about it is that men can't control themselves and so you have to, you know, basically cover yourself. Well, John, that's why you can't show your stomach when you raise your hands, right? Obviously, yeah. You know, like we can't handle that. We can't handle a little bit of skin, but like you're doing everything you're supposed to do, but they don't really, they don't really like prepare you for like, well, what if somebody forces you to do something against your will?

[00:20:59] That part, they don't really cover in purity culture. And so that is an interesting thing. Like, you know, from a psychological perspective, you're thinking like, hey, I followed the rules. I did exactly what I was supposed to do. And yet here I am in this situation. And so being, you know, I would assume like probably the first major moment where life is kind of testing you, you know, being raised in the culture you're raised in, you know, how did that impact

[00:21:27] your spirituality after that? And especially since it sounds like it was like pretty fresh after moving to this new city, this new place where you're still getting your feet under you. Like, how did that impact you? Yeah, I think that I saw it as my faith was a jacket and the jacket was too small. And my therapist encouraged me to put that small jacket aside and to take on a bigger jacket of faith.

[00:21:57] And that's really what I did in the next few months. I was very intentional with my healing and I started working with a holy yoga instructor. And, you know, like maybe former me would have been told or believed that yoga was satanic and opening up portals for demons, you know, but like, I guess like the part of me that was stepping into a bigger faith was like, well, it's holy yoga. It's okay. You know, that was the bridge I needed.

[00:22:27] Oh yeah. Okay. So I just was like able to work with her and she'd worked with victims of sexual trafficking that had escaped. And like often people hold sexual trauma in their hips, I found out. And so she did a lot of work with my body to release my hips and to release that trauma. And it was really powerful, those sessions that I had with her. And I tried a lot of different modalities. I was journaling a lot.

[00:22:56] There was a fundraiser for rain and it was like at a bar in LA and I wrote a spoken word poem and I memorized all 15 pages of it. And it was my story and my healing journey. And I got up in front of a bar full of people and I get halfway through and I forget all my words. I'm just staring at everyone like a deer in the headlights. And then they all just start snapping and cheering for me. And suddenly it all comes flooding back

[00:23:25] and I finish it. And like this moment of euphoric empowerment, you know, like I, it was so healing to like be able to create an art piece and perform it in front of people and to heal through that. So I did a lot of things that were super intentional. And after the DA said, we're not going to prosecute your attacker, you know, that he said, she said, there was someone in my life who was like an on-again, off-again boyfriend.

[00:23:54] And he really took good care of me and walked beside me in my healing. He knew when to let me stay in bed all day because that's what I needed. He knew when to make me get up and walk the beach because that's what I needed. And I was just so grateful for his presence. He also, he didn't expect me to be anywhere in my healing that I wasn't. He wasn't giving me these Christian platitudes of everything happens for a reason or anything like that that would have just been absolute bullshit in that time.

[00:24:25] And so he took me out to Catalina Island, which is just off the coast of California. And I got a massage and it was just like, it was such a spiritual experience because later that night I could feel the trauma literally moving through my body and escaping. And I just couldn't stop sobbing. But she was a healing practitioner and she had obviously loosened it to the place where it could be released from my body. And I remember telling my boyfriend

[00:24:55] at the time, I said, I need to forgive God, but I don't know how. And he just prayed this very simple prayer and he said, God, I forgive you. And I repeated it, God, I forgive you. And like this peace just washed over my spirit. And I could tell you, John, like nowhere in my theology framework up to that point is there a place for forgiving God. Because God doesn't do anything wrong, right?

[00:25:24] So if we're angry at him, then that's our fault and our problem. And I just realized through that whole process of first of all, acknowledging my anger towards him, realizing that I needed to forgive him in order to get through, through that emotion to the next level of my healing. It was really an incredible thing to realize God is big enough for us not only to be angry at him, but us to forgive him, even if he is perfect.

[00:25:55] And how critical and important in healing that was for me. So that was a huge revelation. And that really expanded my idea of God that it's okay. It's okay to be angry at him and it's okay to have to forgive him. Yeah. That's the book of Job right there, man. What's interesting too, to me about what you just said is, you know, if you look at it from the perspective of like in the aftermath of this,

[00:26:23] God is sending people to stand beside you, like just the variety of different types of people that helped in your journey. And like probably most of them probably wouldn't even describe themselves as Christian. You've got a yoga practitioner, you've got counselors, you know, who may or may not have a life of faith and like all these different people from these different backgrounds who came together and were part of your healing journey is just, I mean,

[00:26:52] that's it, man, right there, right? Like, that's pretty beautiful. It really is. And I think that, you know, when we've been through a trauma or a loss, we're able, in such a bigger way to be there for someone else. And so that's exactly who God brought into my life during that time was people that had walked that road and carried that trauma. And so, and I'm so grateful for my boyfriend at the time because he wasn't a believer, but he had the capacity to walk with me in that and to be

[00:27:23] more helpful in my healing process than, you know, really anyone else could be at that time. I mean, he prayed for you. That's huge. I know. I know. Yeah. Like, oh, that's incredible. I love that. Yeah. The funny story I was going to tell you is when Adam and I were first starting out, we had a guy just for Halloween as a topical episode. Really nice guy, but he was a priest who basically worked

[00:27:53] as an exorcist. And we were asking him questions about like, what are things that can, you know, how could one become possessed? And one of the things he mentioned was yoga. And so off the record, we said, it would be really funny to make T-shirts. It said, yoga stretches for Satan, you know, across the bottom. Did you ever make him? No, but I should have. I should have. It's never too late. It works on your website. Yeah. Stretches for Satan.

[00:28:22] So let's talk about your book a little bit. Like, obviously, you know, fast forward a little bit. You know, we were kind of talking before we started recording about just how weird of a time COVID was. Obviously, none of us were alive during what is it, 1912, the last time we had a major pandemic of that kind. And so, you know, in the initial aftermath, like I said, I got COVID pretty, pretty, pretty bad in the early going. But we were all just sort of figuring out, like, what is this? You know, like, obviously,

[00:28:52] the medical field was scrambling to figure out what the hell is going on. How worried do we need to be? How bad is this? And so, like, we're just trying to trying to get by as a society. You end up in a very strange scenario, a very strange situation. So talk about, like, how you ended up in the situation you were in that you talked about in the book. Yeah, so that boyfriend that I have mentioned, he ended up getting a sailboat and he was sailing around the Caribbean

[00:29:21] and he'd always send me pictures and be like, come visit. And I was like, no, I'm not going to open up this can of worms. Like, he didn't share my faith and I just didn't feel like he was my forever person. And then, eventually, I did come visit him in Panama and we cruised the San Blas Islands, which are absolutely incredible. And, um, he was getting ready to go on a passage from Panama to the Marquesas, which is a quarter of the way around the globe. And he invited me to come with him. And I was like, are you crazy?

[00:29:51] Like, I'm not a sailor and I'm not going to leave LA and auditions for weeks at a time. And, like, I could miss so much that's going on in LA. Um, and so he said, okay, I'll buy you a nice camera and you can make a documentary about it. So then I said, when do we leave? Because I love a good creative project. I guess. He knew exactly how to get me on that boat. And so we left Panama March 7th and it was a very normal world. You know, we heard about this thing called coronavirus that was happening in China

[00:30:21] and I think that they had just had maybe the first few cases in America. And when my mom dropped me off at the airport, she was like, it would be funny if you're not able to get back into the country because of coronavirus. And I just laughed. I was like, this thing in China is not going to affect my travel plans. So we set sail and one week into this trip, we get an email on the satellite email that this thing called coronavirus has broken out across the world.

[00:30:50] And the shit has hit the fan. And it was really weird to get that news being in the middle of the ocean with no options. We didn't have access to the internet. We didn't have access to social media. So any news that we got was just people forwarding us articles. And we were so scared for our families. I remember just we kept contacting them, making sure they're okay, making sure they were still okay, that they were following all of the protocols to stay healthy.

[00:31:19] And we knew we were safe because we were out in the middle of the ocean and there's no way we could get it. So I think that that allowed us to like focus on our families and are they okay? But then how it was relevant to us was that borders were closing down and countries were saying, you can't come on land when you get here because you're not a citizen. You don't have a passport to our country. We had our three crew members. They're European Union citizens. So everything was going to be different for them

[00:31:49] than it would be for my boyfriend and I because we, of course, were U.S. citizens. So we were like, what are our options? How are we going to get home? And we can't go back to Panama because they've closed their borders. They're not accepting any boats. So we really had no option other than to keep sailing to the Marqueses. And every single day we would get news that the officials in the Marqueses, they were going to let us come on land after we did a 14-day quarantine on our boat.

[00:32:19] And then they'd say, oh no, your 26 days sailing here will count as your quarantine and you can come on land right away. And then the next day there would be an email that said, you can't come on land at all. And so, you know, we just never, there was such a feeling of anxiety and uncertainty because it was changing constantly and the world was changing constantly. And it was very interesting to have people from different countries because we were getting news from Spain. One of our crew members was from Spain and they were one of the first countries

[00:32:49] to go on a two-week lockdown. And at the time, America wasn't doing that. So it was like, oh, that's crazy that Spain's doing that, you know? And then eventually that's going to trickle everywhere. Everyone's going to be in a quarantine lockdown. But it was just very strange to have unfold the way that we did. And it caused tension, you know, with the crew. Like there was different personalities, different faiths. Um, and there was, the first mate was very passive-aggressive with me.

[00:33:19] He let me know because I had the least sailing experience of anyone. They were all actual sailors that had been on different passages before. And I just showed up with my camera to be with my boyfriend, you know? And so, I had the least experience and he would let me know anytime I did anything inaccurately on my watch. Um, which got really frustrating over time, especially with the pressure cooker that we were in because of COVID. So, we finally landed in the Marquesas.

[00:33:48] It was a 26-day passage and what made the most sense for our crew was for them to go to Tahiti because they would be allowed on land there. But my boyfriend and I would not have been allowed on land. So, it didn't make sense for us to go there. So, we were able to get groceries, get fuel, and then they're like, get out of here. And so, we put out a call to all the other boats that were anchored in the bay and we said, is anyone going to Tahiti? Do they have room for three crew members? And this boat responded.

[00:34:18] They said, we're leaving in 45 minutes. If they can get on the boat in 45 minutes, they can come with us. And so, my boyfriend goes up and tells them the news that they can get on this boat. They're all sipping their morning coffee and they were in no rush. And they're like, oh, that's too fast. I don't think we'll make it because they just wanted us to sail them to Tahiti. So, I called him down and he'd been passive a lot on the passage and I had gotten really tired of like being the one

[00:34:48] to have to deal with all the conflict and carry it myself. And so, I said, go back upstairs and tell them that if they are not on that boat, then they're leaving with us to Hawaii tomorrow. So, he did. And there's this mad scramble and they're packing everything and they took all of our food because they had to bring their own provisions on the boat and then they were off to Tahiti. My goodness. Like, you think you're going into this beautiful like sort of vacation experience and turns out you were filming

[00:35:17] a season of Big Brother, you know, on a boat. I was. I was. And there were a lot of times where I had the question like, do I bring the camera out right now because this is some really good conflict and tension. But then there was like this desire to respect people and not put a camera in their face when they were dealing with all the anxiety and emotions that they were. And so, I really struggle with that line and, you know, I think I did make the right decision even though it would have been a much more interesting documentary

[00:35:47] had I done that. going a more respectful route, just, you know, to be kind because everybody was so stressed out. And the last thing they needed was me like, oh, hold on one second. Let me get. Exactly. I mean, so many other producers from Hollywood would have not batted an eye, but, you know, that's probably very kind of you to do that. So, um, your memoir, like, it's really interesting because it sort of begins, as you say,

[00:36:17] like as a sort of an adventure story. Um, then it sort of morphs into a relationship story, then a trauma story, and then finally almost like a spiritual memoir. At what point did you realize, um, this isn't actually a sailing book anymore? Yeah, so there was so much that happened that was not captured in that documentary. Like I said, I didn't pull out the camera and start shooting when the really emotional stuff was happening between myself and my boyfriend

[00:36:45] or myself and the crew, and there was just so much more to the story even once we landed in Hawaii, um, which I can get into now or later, but I said, you know, this documentary captures being out on the ocean during COVID and what that meant for us, but it does not cover the relational journey, the spiritual journey, and I knew I had to write it and I had to, like, tell the full story that wasn't seen in the documentary. So I think I kind of set out

[00:37:14] knowing it was going to be that, but there's that structure of the COVID sailing adventure that sets it off and kind of provides the structure for all the other elements that are there. Yeah, that's, I mean, it's fascinating. I can only imagine having been, like, a publicist who gets your pitch and they're like, holy cow, there's so much, there's so many different avenues in your story that I don't know that I've ever seen anything quite like it.

[00:37:45] It's very unique. That's why I asked you, where do you want to start? What would you, what would you like me to talk about? Because there are, and it's so interesting, I mean, God is the greatest storyteller of all and I feel like the way he weaved this was, like, such a beautiful journey. Many times did not feel beautiful, many times were traumatic, but at the end, kind of hindsight is 20-20 and you can see, oh, okay, I see how that happened, led to this and where I am today as a result and how I can help others.

[00:38:15] And I'm very grateful. Like, I don't think I anticipated when I got on that boat that I would have so many variations of the story that I would be able to tell with the documentary, with the memoir, with the course that I've created that helps other people discover and tell their own stories. And I would say my life really changed when I said yes to getting on that boat. And I, but I had no idea how it was going to.

[00:38:50] Does that I'm alive even here? Does she care that I doubt? Does she care that I fear? Something tells

[00:39:11] If God has a face,

[00:39:48] his face must look like yours. Did God kill his kid? Do you have to have blood before he made a God

[00:40:17] that looks like us? Is the ache in my soul just confined? Even so, does it? It's not real.

[00:41:11] If God has a face, her face must look like yours. Like a Tina, an Ahmed or Mildred, a Russ and his husband, Gus and their children. Face like a Kim,

[00:41:41] a Ted or Tyrone, a Lucent extra chrome.