Culty Situations
pay what you can (pwyc) course
Reclaim Your Sovereignty, Part 1
PKA Culty Situations + What to do about it: a loose guide
Part 1 is a series of 6 videos, each around 2 hours long. The first 4 videos were filmed in 2022, the last 2 videos were filmed in 2024. Each video features Heidi in conversation with someone that they know has wisdom to share about the topic. The seventh video is a short conversation with Heidi about how people with Autism are often found in cults.
The focus on this to have a conversation breaking down the different ways we come out of our sovereignty, and then how to reclaim it. I called this series of conversations “culty situations” since I was seeing a lot of culty things around me that were ways people were falling out of their sovereignty, in their relationships, business, spirituality, etc.
There's a lot of culty things out there from wellness to politics to business. Yoga even. Vitamins. I'm not a cult expert, but I'm in the wellness industry and it pops up a lot, so we're gonna get into it! Here is the list of topics, bringing us through the first inklings of maybe realizing you’ve lost your sovereignty, to the last video, where you are hoping to leave that culty situation, and take back your power.
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Do you feel like you - with Wren Crandall, artist/activist/harm reduction worker
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Ground into your own energy – with Rina from Liddleworks
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Protect your field - with Andi Grace Rose from Smoke and Forage Herbals
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Edit your life - with Katie Brennan from Katie Brennan Ceremonies
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Is this about you or them - with Megan Gilron from Intimacy Coordination
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How to say goodbye - with Swetha Ranasuriya from Suvaya Therapy and Tarot Times With Heidi Care Team
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Autism and Cults - with Heidi Nagtegaal
Culty situations + what to do about it: a loose guide
A video series of 2 hour long sessions, where Heidi is in conversation with various professionals, while talking about the following topics.
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Do you feel like you
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Ground into your own energy
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Protect your field
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Edit your life
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Is this about you or them
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How to say goodbye
Ground into your own energy: questions to explore
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What does it feel like when you are you?
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What are signs that something is off?
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What does that look like physically? Emotionally? Intellectually? Spiritually?
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Personal anecdotes
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Kinds of cults to watch out for, and the different ways they throw off your energy
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Personal self care routines to guard your energy (can be mundane)
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How have you betrayed yourself?
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How have you come back to yourself?
Do you feel like you
Filmed on January 18, 2022, Heidi Nagtegaal is in conversation with Wren Crandall: artist, activist, harm reduction worker, single parent, living in St John, New Brunswick. The two discuss themes around “do you feel like you” covering from birthing movements to activist subcultures, grounding into the idea of feeling your own autonomy and sense of self being a touchpoint for discernment and intuition when dealing with culty situations.
Wren and Heidi went over how cult dynamics, kinds of cults, culturally, and specifically politically or ideologically and how that is passed off as spirituality, and how folks can lose themselves in group think. Special focus was given to gaslighting people into thinking that they were the problem, and pushing aside their intuition that something was off.
ground into your own energy
Filmed on February 15, 2022, Heidi Nagtegaal is in conversation with Rina Liddle: Founder/CEO of Liddleworks Media, and artist, living in Vancouver, BC. Rina has extensive experience in the business world, and draws on culty business practices, networking, and how she has dealt with that through grounding into her own energy, and taking back her personal power.
In “Ground into your own energy” Rina and Heidi discuss how cult dynamics show up especially in business, and spiritual communities. How business can be passed off as spiritual when it's networking. How to feel yourself when you’re being targeted in an MLM. Special focus was given to recognizing trauma responses when you are trying to ground into your energy, but you have left the room, and how vulnerable that can make a person to being prey to marketing ploys when they make you feel “more spiritual” if you buy into XYZ and how that folds into the culture of current post late capitalism. Heidi and Rina went over how it felt in their body when they were approached with shifty thinking, and how trauma responses came up for them, and how that can be harm reduced, through the good, bad and the ugly of it all.
protect your field
Filmed on March 14, 2022, Heidi Nagtegaal is in conversation with Andi Poplar Rose: single mom, doula, and wild crafter, living in Sointula, BC. Protecting your field can look like so many different things: taking herbs, having boundaries, doing spells, going to therapy. Andi has done it all, and draws from her experiences in this conversation.
Andi Rose bio
Andi Rose is a land loving forager, wild witch and folk herbalist. She is trained as a full spectrum doula and trauma informed yoga teacher. She has a background in supporting at-risk youth and feminist community facilitation. https://smokeandforage.ca/
edit your life
Filmed on April 12, 2022, Heidi Nagtegaal is in conversation with Katie Brennan, ceremonial artist and facilitator/founder at Katie Brennan Ceremonies. Katie shares what it was like for her to have to go through her life, and exercise her boundaries through editing her life. Determining what gets to stay and what needs to go. After a bout of health concerns, Katie’s focus sharpened, and decisions that were murky with people pleasing and getting caught up in scenes got crystal clear, and she shares that wisdom with us here.
In “edit your life” Katie + Heidi talked about discernment, knowing who you are, honoring yourself, making hard decisions, trusting the process, the intelligence of the process, decoding the process, finding out what works, what fed you about that experience, honoring what led you there, and honoring what is what you need to let go of.
Katie Brennan bio
Katie Brennan is a certified Wedding Officiant, Lifecycle Celebrant™, ordained Metaphysical Minister, Ceremonial Artist and Spiritual Seeker.
She studied as a Metaphysician with Intuitive Cheryl Forrest for 4 years and holds her Reiki I + II Certification. She also absolutely loves 5 Rhythms, an embodied movement / consicous dance practice and has been taking workshops whenever she is able since 2012.
She is also a professional Artist and brings her artist vision to all of her ceremonies. She holds a MFA from the University of Guelph and a BFA from Emily Carr University of Art + Design, was the Curator of the Lake Country Art Gallery for 4 years and was an Art Consultant for 8 years. https://katiebrennanceremonies.ca/
is it about you or them?
Filmed on March 14, 2024, Heidi Nagtegaal is in conversation with Megan Gilron, a self employed Intimacy Coordinator and Sex Educator. Megan shares her experiences in communities dealing with culty dynamics of “we all think this way here” or “this is the way it’s done here” as a neurodivergent person, making an accessible world for herself, that honors her unique way of doing things.
In “Is it you or them” Megan stated (and I agree with them) that it is always both. Both people contributed to the system they created, and you need to take responsibility for the ways you were unhealthy, or didn’t have boundaries, or didn’t speak your truth, or went along with things too. That the other person, or community (etc) has things to take responsibility for as well.
We talked a lot about the cult of capitalism, hustle culture, patriarchy, and how it shapes our jobs, work situations, industries, the nonprofit sector, as well as cultural groups, like queer folks, anti-o folks, and woke culture. How we can honor ourselves by making new dynamics and structures that honor ourselves and our communities.
Megan bio
Megan Gilron (she | her | they | them) is a comprehensive sexual health and sexuality educator, an actors’ advocate and an Intimacy Coordinator for film and television. She is a queer, gender-fluid, solo-poly sex witch deeply passionate about helping people access their pleasure, unlearn shame, and nurture meaningful relationships.
Their work is diversely informed by training and experience in mental health first aid, conflict resolution, consent and boundaries negotiations, alternative sexual practices (including kink and BDSM) and facilitation of somatic bodywork. www.megangilron.com @megangilron on Instagram
how to say goodbye
Filmed in March 2024, Heidi Nagtegaal is in conversation with Swetha Ranasuriya from Suvaya Therapy, a bachelor in fine arts, a trained art therapist, registered clinical counselor, and masters in conflict resolution.
autism and cults
This is a conversation between the viewer and Heidi Nagtegaal. People with Autism are found in higher numbers than neurotypical folks in cults. Because people with Autism speak the truth, and expect that others are doing the same, they are especially vulnerable to cults.
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I used to work in east side schools with high barrier youth. One of the biggest ways to fight poverty + give them more options than a minimum wage at 7/11 or selling weed is to get kids to graduate from high school.
Which means supporting them to get through school. The amount of students I saw in grade 7 who could only do grade 1 or 2 level math was astounding.
You want to give them support early on so they don’t fall behind
Many children at risk are indigenous, which means they have the intergenerational trauma of residential schools, and their parents may or may not be able - emotionally or intellectually - to support them with their homework, or prioritize learning
For them, if a kid doesn’t want to go to school, and they were forced to go to residential schools and that was harmful to them, they won’t make their kid go to school, or prioritize learning
By the time a youth is in grade 10 they might be so far behind that school seems stupid, or too hard, and they stop going.
Which doesn’t give them a lot of career options, which leads to poverty, and / or crime.
Often times these kids prioritize relationships and romance, and have families early, which means they need to provide income, which puts pressure on them to get more money, which makes them more vulnerable to crime, which they might not want to do, but feel they have no choice because they want/need to provide for their families.