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Honest Feedback
Honest Feedback offers compassionate support, advice and new perspectives on navigating life's challenges.
Honest Feedback
When God Becomes the Inner Critic: Healing the Wounds of Faith with Dr. Shadow Mike
What if the fear you feel when following your truth isn’t really yours?
In this powerful and thought-provoking episode, we sit down with Dr. Michael “Shadow Mike” Simmons—a former pastor turned shadow work coach—to explore how religious conditioning impacts our ability to live fully, freely, and authentically.
Many of us have rejected the religious teachings we were raised with… yet find ourselves stuck in patterns of shame, fear, and self-denial. Mike breaks down why that is—and how the unconscious “God image” we inherited in childhood continues to shape our decisions, relationships, and even our sense of worth.
Together, we unpack:
Why children must be allowed to create their own reality—and how religion often thwarts that
How our parents become our “first God image” and why that’s crucial to understand
The double bind of religious trauma: you're not allowed to seek help outside the system
How shadow work helps you access feelings (like anger or desire) that religion told you were sinful
Why breaking free isn’t just a mental process—it’s emotional, spiritual, and somatic
What healing actually looks like when your soul still flinches at your own liberation
We also share deeply personal stories of religious deconstruction—from Brittney’s experience growing up a pastor’s kid in a household of contradictions, to Lisset’s journey of finding God through personal exploration, to Mike’s transformation from zealous young Christian to guide of the shadows.
✨ Feeling the pull to reclaim your authentic self?
Connect with Dr. Simmons at shadowmike.com for a free 30-minute discovery call and begin your own shadow work journey.
🌕 And if you’re ready to expand your relationship with the Divine in a new way...
Join Lisset King for her upcoming Intro to Huna class, happening June 21–22, 2025. This immersive weekend experience introduces you to Huna, an ancient Hawaiian energy and wisdom tradition, and offers powerful tools to realign with your truth.
Spots are limited—reach out to Lisset at @lissetkingofficial or visit lissetking.com/huna to register.
Honest Feedback was created by Brittney King and Lisset King.
Note: Honest Feedback Podcast aims to provide insights and provoke thoughtful reflection. The opinions expressed in this episode are for informational purposes only and should not replace professional advice.
Please send us your questions by leaving a voicemail at 971-895-4111, DM us on instagram @honestfeedbackpodcast or email us at thekings@honestfeedbackpodcast.com
Keep up with the podcast by following us @HonestFeedbackPodcast on YouTube
I remember when my son started, he was like four. He was lying about everything. Like everything he said was not true. He would come home from school and tell us an elaborate story about some friend's parents, and then all to find out like it's completely made up. And so we did a little investigating into this and it was like, oh, kids actually need to develop this skill set of creating their reality. If they don't have the space to create their reality, they will just learn to accept the reality that someone hands them.
Goddess Brittney King:Welcome to Honest Feedback, the podcast where deep truth meets bold transformation. I'm goddess Brittany King, a pleasure priestess and a transformational retreat facilitator who helps women connect to their deepest truths, reclaim their pleasure and awaken their inner power.
Lisset King:And I'm Lissette King an emotional ninja and transformational coach who helps leaders release baggage, heal unresolved trauma and step into their most aligned, purposeful lives.
Goddess Brittney King:We've created this podcast for spirit-led individuals just like you, Seekers of truth personal growth and meaningful connection.
Lisset King:Whether you're navigating life's big questions, craving more joy and fulfillment, or simply looking for honest, relatable conversations, you're in the right place.
Goddess Brittney King:Through personal stories, actionable advice and transformative insights. Our ultimate goal is to empower you to create a life that's overflowing with pleasure, purpose and authenticity.
Lisset King:We know you're capable of incredible things, so let's make it happen together. Welcome back to Honest Feedback. Today we've got a juicy question and an incredible, incredible guest, our friend Shadow Mike, and he's just first of all. He's one of these real ones. Like the moment I met him, I knew that we were meant to do things together Like just an incredible human. And this question today is diving into. How do we move through some deep religious trauma or feeling held back as we try to expand our life? Do you know anything about that, brooke?
Goddess Brittney King:Well, do I know anything about religious trauma as a PK? This is known as a pastor's kid. Yeah, yeah, girl, I've been experiencing it and growing through it. Funnily enough, a lot of people who happen to see me have some of that sprinkled in there. And as someone who deals in spaces of sacred sexuality, religious trauma is something that definitely pops up often, and I'm really, really looking forward to hearing his perspective about it. How about?
Lisset King:for you? Yeah, so you know, I've definitely had my own experience finding my relationship with God and through. It was a very wayward path and I'm excited to dive deep into that as we discuss the question Should we give him a call?
Goddess Brittney King:Yeah, we'll let Mike introduce himself. Shout out Mike, let's give him a call. Discuss the question. Should we give him a call? Yeah, we'll let Mike introduce himself. Shadow Mike, let's give him a call. Hi, mike, we are so happy to have you on the podcast.
Dr. Shadow Mike:Oh, it is honestly an absolute delight. I just feel really playful inside and I'm excited to be here and just hang out with y'all.
Goddess Brittney King:Yes, we're so excited to have you. I mean, we've been telling everyone you. I mean you're our amazing friend Shadow Mike and like, and now I find out, you're Dr Michael Simmons, Dr Shadow Mike.
Dr. Shadow Mike:Dr Shadow, mike, don't you love it?
Goddess Brittney King:when you find out your friends have like fancy accolades and you're like yes, yeah, and I feel like that is happening really frequently since moving to Portland.
Dr. Shadow Mike:I'm like, oh, you're a witch, oh God, you're like. You heal people's bodies from head to toe. You know, it's like you just never know what you're going to run into, you know.
Goddess Brittney King:You never know. Well, in your own words, like share. How are you serving, how are you helping?
Dr. Shadow Mike:How are you being a light in this world? Yeah, so I'm a shadow work coach, and I got into this work as a former pastor. Actually, I have always been someone who helps people navigate their spiritual lives right, that was the proclivity even as a kid, and as I got older and realized, oh, there's a lot of light shining in one direction within the circles of Christianity that I was a part of, it left a lot of shadow right, people walked around with just dense, dark areas of their lives that were completely unexplored, and as I moved further and further into the profession of full-time ministry, it just became clearer and clearer. People needed a space to actually like turn around and look at what they couldn't see because of how much light they were focusing in on. So, or attempting to focus in on, yeah, yeah, so that's what I do. I'm a full-time shadow work coach and I have clients all over the world, actually from Australia, melbourne, australia to Nebraska. I mean it's it's actually quite amazing. I have a lot of fun talking with so many different people.
Lisset King:Oh, that's incredible. And what? What makes someone come to a shadow work coach? If our listeners out there and they're like I don't know, do I need a shadow work coach? Tell us what, what, what lights you up about shadow?
Dr. Shadow Mike:Yeah, yeah, what makes you feel like really icky and yeah, well, I mean your listeners are going to be familiar with, you know the term shadow, even if they don't use the word, the word, you know it's metaphor, it's Jung, carl Jung, psychologist. Carl Jung would have brought this forward, expanded it pretty dramatically from what Freud had done, and essentially, it is the part of us that we hide, repress and deny. It is the part of us that we hide, repress and deny. So when people seek me out, it's usually because life has become unmanageable because of an area in their life that they're out of relationship with. They don't know how to relate to that part of themselves and it's, you know, destroying their relationships, whether that's work, partners, kids, and that could either be because they don't have access to an emotion. So many men that I work with cannot access emotion around sadness, right, they cannot feel, they feel almost detached and it's wearing down their more intimate relationship. I have a number of female clients who come to me and cannot access their anger and therefore they really have lost access to their agency and their power and their ability to change their life.
Dr. Shadow Mike:What I love about shadow work is it's not just personal my, my bachelor's and master's degrees were both in sociology and anthropology, so I look at this idea of shadow as as a collective issue, right, so there are common shadow elements, um, that people in specific uh areas all carry, and so we don't try to just focus on the one person but say, hey, listen, this was the atmosphere that you were steeped in for decades. So let's just acknowledge the fact that you might not know any other woman in your life who has access to their anger. So take a deep breath and be okay with that reality for a moment. And now we're going to move forward. Now we're going to step into what does that anger feel like?
Dr. Shadow Mike:Where do you locate it in your body? It's a lot of body work. People like I don't know how to access my body, I don't know what's going on. It's like, well, we've got to build a relationship with it, like most things, right. So, yeah, yeah, I think it's. It's what would draw someone, uh, to seek out. This work is typically emotional. It's there's oftentimes the emotional element. Uh, that's the trailhead into that denser, darker forest of shadow yeah, oh, it's so good.
Goddess Brittney King:I'm like, where were you on my path 15 years ago? Well, we all met in divide timing and, uh, we, just when we got this question, we knew that you were the perfect person to speak to about this because, coming in hot, talking about religion and, like you, being a, I'm a I don't know if you know this, I'm a pastor's kid oh I did not know that I'm a pk.
Dr. Shadow Mike:Wow, okay, okay. So you got. You got that religious drama, you know, at least back in there yes, I do, yes, I do, and also many of my.
Goddess Brittney King:It's very funny, I advertise it nowhere. Like nothing about my page speaks about religious drama or religion really at all, and many of my clients come to me being like so I have this thing. I was in church, Like like, how did you find me?
Dr. Shadow Mike:I mean, it's so, it's so real, honestly, and I love, I love you know being goddess, brittany King, like how you've turned that on its head in such a beautiful way. I mean that's. I mean I don't know if there is there. Is there anyone in our like, at least in the country I don't know, like, is it possible to not carry some kind of traumatic right, this kind of split that has come about through religion or spirituality? I don't know, I don't know that I've really met someone who is that detached from it. It's so ubiquitous in the collective, either by either by something that has actually happened to them or by virtue of it, them not having access to spirituality because maybe the generation before them completely left spirituality or religion and then they're like they don't have any kind of language or experience to work with.
Lisset King:Mm-hmm yeah.
Goddess Brittney King:Yeah Well, we knew you were the perfect person, so let us dive in. Okay, all right, high, honest feedback. I grew up in a very religious household and, while I no longer align with those teachings, I still find myself in conflict whenever I pursue a new, more authentic version of myself, whether it's striving for financial success, starting my new career or exploring alternative relationships. I'm Polly. I keep hearing the echoes of my upbringing holding me back. They got the fear of God.
Dr. Shadow Mike:Yeah, I love to maybe approach this from the developmental psychology perspective because I think that there's there's something really problematic about how relationship with the God image, particularly in Christianity because that's my background and actually I like to use the phrase the common Christian myth because when you say Christianity, it's like who are you talking about?
Dr. Shadow Mike:A million kinds of Christianity. So the common Christian myth for me is a way of saying you know, there are, there are certain, there are common images, symbols and beliefs that that kind of hold people back from engaging their life and and, and one of those is this idea of fear. Right, like fear is both. Like something that you're supposed to cast out, because perfect love casts out fear. Okay, there's this bible verse. No one knows where it's at, it's just in their bodies. Um, and perfect love casts out fear. But then you're supposed to have this fear of god. And if you were to walk up to your pastor and say, excuse me, do you have a dictionary that would help me to lay out the different definitions of fear that you're working with? You're like they don't have that.
Dr. Shadow Mike:So people lose access to their fear, the signal that is supposed to actually alert you to danger, that needed. There's some level of like necessity that's there, and then, um, uh, then they can't actually discern or decipher when they need to use it and when they don't need to use it, when it's over-functioning and when it's like, oh, wow, it's like really under-functioning. Like you need to be a bit more aware that there's danger around here right now Like you need to make a different decision. Other times like, no, I'm, I'm just going to, I'm going to hold everything back, I'm not going to engage any of my life because I'm too afraid to be hurt, to fail. I mean the existential dread of a God that you know might be upset with you or, you know, think you're actually going to hell or can send you there, but then also loves you. Think about that from a developmental psychology. How can you hold a divine, all knowing, all powerful, uh, um God image that then um is supposed to love you but has, like, like perfect standards for you. Supposed to love you but has, like like perfect standards for you?
Dr. Shadow Mike:There's even this I remember when my son started like and he was like four, he was lying about everything, Like everything he said was not true. He would like he would come home from school and tell us an elaborate story about some friends, parents, and then all to find out like it's completely made up. And so we did a little investigating into this and it was like, oh, kids actually need to develop this skillset of creating their reality. If they don't have the space to create their reality, they will just learn to accept the reality that someone hands them. So this is like sin number one when it comes to like a very common Christian myth household, which is like you shall not lie.
Dr. Shadow Mike:I had a client once who said that her parents, her parents, telling her when she's a kid that they would never lie to her. Now that sounds great on one hand, but on another hand it's like but you mean that there is no space for there to be differentiation, for there there's no space for nuance or creativity between an adult and a child, creativity between an adult and a child. And so if a kid is walking around feeling like God knows everything about them right, Because God is all present they never get to develop the ability to create their own reality because they can't experiment. It's right, they have to be perfect. God knows the thoughts of your heart and you never develop the ability to think outside of that construct in that box.
Dr. Shadow Mike:So, thinking of this, you know, for for your listener who's asking this question, a huge part of the work that I would invite them into would be around exploring their image of God, would be around exploring their image of God. There's a lot of areas we could go with that, but, like when you feel this kind of resistance that he's like, okay, I'm not really involved in that anymore, yeah, like you're not in church, but the church is very much still in you and we might need to pull out some of those authoritative voices that are in a place where you actually need to take some authority and some ownership of your own life. So I mean, that's a long way to answer that beginning of that question, but that's a big place to start because if you can only go as far as your image of the divine has a lot of very specific thoughts about how you, you know, live every moment of your day mike, I am shooketh I am shooketh.
Lisset King:You just explained her entire reality.
Goddess Brittney King:Yeah, I was just like wow, wow, that. What really just keeps exploding in my head and in my heart was the. This is a developmental stage where kids are actually learning how to create their own reality. And what our listener is saying is saying every time I'm trying to create my reality, I'm in fear. And because, if you're not having that space to imagine, to create, to decide, and it's like, oh, everything's been decided for me, like I'm just like, wow, fucking like, what a vice grip, what a vice grip to one's soul and to being, and so it's like it's absolutely understandable, paula. Like that you are in this place and feeling stuck, and feeling like I'm fearful of God, and even just that image of like if God's all knowing but also holding this thing of like this is what it means to be perfect, like it's just well, how do I measure up? How do I? How do I? How do I do anything?
Dr. Shadow Mike:Yeah, you know this is an original thought I'm having right now, but the in the Protestant version of the common Christian myth you have two, essentially two camps. You've got the camp that believes that God has kind of decided everything, like you said, and there's really not much we can do about it. It's predestined, that's the word that's often used. And then there's another side of the camp that believes that we have free will, right, that God created everything and didn't just kind of go on vacation but in some ways just kind of is letting us decide what we end up doing. It's all centered around where we end up in eternity, right. So God has either predestined some to go to hell and some to go to heaven. And then this other side says you know, god has actually given everyone free will, but a lot of people will choose to go to hell in the end. And I was thinking about how like this is, how problematic this is like from an attachment theory perspective, right. So over here you have this idea that God has kind of predestined everything. You don't really have a lot of ownership, you don't have a lot of agency and in some ways like you're controlled, so it can develop this attachment style, not just like people, but just to yourself, to life, like to everything that feels almost smothered by control, which, in attachment language, would often result in kind of this either disorganized or an avoidant attachment style.
Dr. Shadow Mike:And then over here, this idea that you have free will and you can choose every, you know the, every single choice is a moment is a choice. Well, that would develop this sense of like. Well, like, where is God in that? Like what? What control does the divine have over my life, if I can choose all of this? And that could very easily turn into an anxious style of attachment where you don't know if parent, mom, dad, you know divine parent is present, like you're looking for signs of connection but you can't quite track it, because with the free will idea it's like how can you know?
Dr. Shadow Mike:Right, the devil disguises himself as an angel of light, but guess what God does too? And then sometimes the devil looks like a someone with a pitchfork and like horns on their head, and guess what? Well, sometimes God looks like that too. So you just, you just don't know. You don't know what, what. So people oftentimes, like, quite literally, will spend decades stuck because every decision almost feels life or death in like the eternal sense. They wouldn't say that consciously, but, as we all know, it's actually all about what the unconscious truly believes, and that's what's guiding or keeping them from taking that step towards the life they really want.
Goddess Brittney King:I know Well, I'm feeling like. So your first question is asking them to explore what they think about God, or their concept of the image of God. How did you phrase it?
Dr. Shadow Mike:Yeah, Well, it's maybe the image, the image of God. Now, this wouldn't be where I would start with most people, but if this was like the urgent question, right, we might start there and we'd work in some stuff around parents as well. Like you know, it's so often right, Like it's kind of almost shot for shot, right, your image of God is I like to call God your second God image, and then your parents are your first God image, and so the second God image is created in the image of the first God image. And so what is you know, what was your relationship like? You know, what did you experience? And it's like it was almost hidden in plain sight. For so many of them it's like, oh yeah, my dad was exactly like how I think about God.
Goddess Brittney King:I'm having that in real time, yeah, yeah.
Dr. Shadow Mike:Yeah, well, and and this is, it's really hard to untangle that because people feel it feels transgressive to even ask this kind of question. It's like, no, well, God is just how God is. It's like, no, no, he isn't. No, she isn't every way. It's like any way that you've ever thought about the divine has been through an image you can't think about God without thinking about an image and like, look at the Bible. It's like, well, that's not a biblical image of God. Well, god is imaged as a lion, as a lamb, as a horse, as a I mean as a burning bush.
Dr. Shadow Mike:As a burning bush, I mean as a mountain, as a wind, yeah, like there are countless images of God and that wasn't problematic for ancient people. It's problematic for an overly scientific structure, like we can't go beyond the data kind of mind. It's problematic to do that. But ultimately, a huge part of the work here for someone who is rooted and really connected to that, you know, a system of belief is that we have to do some work on their image of God. And so it is about, like, not just from a cognitive or rational like, what's a better image? You know, like, oh, like a deer, that's sweet.
Dr. Shadow Mike:Well, you, actually that might not be helpful, but then we actually enter into the mystical and the magical and we start to like I asked them you know, how did you experience God showing up since we last met? And it is beautiful to see how people will. I had a client recently that it was well, I don't want to share, I don't want to share a story, but yeah, just like experiencing these animals, right, coming out of nowhere, literally, just like that surprised me. And if there is a charge, if there's an energetic charge with that encounter, get curious about it because there might be something there for you.
Lisset King:Yeah, oh God, it's still exploding in my head. What I hear is that dichotomy of you, it's you and it's God. And if God has all the right answers and the moment you do something that is against what God taught you, then you're in the wrong. And so here's this person doing everything that they were taught not to. And how do they not internalize that wrongness?
Dr. Shadow Mike:Yeah, it's Connie Zweig, who's a retired Jungian analyst but writes some incredible books around shadow work and spirituality, and she calls this the ultimate double bind. She talks about how, when it comes to trying to do things right for your God image, there's no feedback. Your God image there's no feedback. There's a broken feedback loop. So you do all the right things but then, like you get in a wreck. Oh well, they're like. It's at least not a positive sign. So maybe it's like oh, like, what did I miss? Is there something I need to be doing more? Like it just keep, this keeps happening.
Dr. Shadow Mike:So I keep trying more and more to be perfect and to purge myself of anything that is not quote, unquote. Good, but you never get the like you, except for, sometimes, intermittent reinforcement. This is a term in psychology around emotionally unavailable partners, right, if you look up intermittent reinforcement, it's like this is actually how someone who's emotionally unavailable will keep you hanging on, and so many people, so many people have a God image that is emotionally unavailable. So every now and then I know, like every now and then they'll get us, they'll get something you know they'll just get, they'll get love bombed and um, it keeps them going. It's like I'm I am now, like I know I'm on the right path, you know, they'll just be so sure.
Dr. Shadow Mike:And it's like, yeah, you are, but like this is this, doesn't? This isn't part of it, like this is an internalized thing at this point that you're you're continuing to cultivate that same image of God. That is one of like, yeah, you know, every seven times you pull the slot machine, or maybe every seven to 15 times you pull the slot machine, you get something, but guess what? You're wasting your life. You're spending your life at the slot machine rather than living waiting for that kind of divine assurance and that divine download to set you free again. It's such a heartbreaking way to live when I think about it. Like so many people, that's how they've lived their lives.
Goddess Brittney King:Gosh, yeah, I'm like. It's just like like oh well, I guess I, if you guys are game, I kind of want to open the space, like do it would you guys be open to sharing personal stories about your own looking at what your god image was and how that was for you? Like opening the shadow of behind the light?
Dr. Shadow Mike:yeah let's start.
Goddess Brittney King:I'm all, I'm all game we'll start with lisette and then go to mike absolutely so.
Lisset King:I have a really interesting story. It was funny because you're like, well, some people don't have religious, everyone has religious trauma, and I used to think I didn't because and I do well there's. There's a really interesting story. My family grew up Catholic. We're South American, colombian, and in the late 70s my mom went Jehovah's Witness. Long story short, they had her selling some encyclopedias and then one day they wanted her to. The encyclopedias were a sin, so then they had to burn the encyclopedias and then my dad was like that's it, we're done, and so she got out of the church and then I was born and essentially no religion at all shoved down my throat, like not once.
Lisset King:I didn't go to church or anything, and what was amazing about it was I grew up kind of godless in a way, and I found my own way back to a spiritual center when I started to do my healing work. I had a near-death experience and everything, and I started to find my relationship with God, the grand organized design. I see it as the cosmic soup we swim in and I fell in love with God as a concept, and I just feel this like all loving presence that's been there, the presence that is never an absence and I have this beautiful relationship with it. And my mother I was visiting with her and one of the things she said, she goes. It's amazing. You're the only one I didn't push God down their throat and you're the only one who still has a relationship with God and it was so beautiful to hear her say that and to acknowledge me in that way. But, yeah, same same, it was a, an absentee parent that I was looking for.
Dr. Shadow Mike:Yeah, I love, yes, it, it really I like would you say I'm just curious for my own kind of data polling here. Like would you say your siblings, like there was, like it was really. It's been really difficult. Still is very difficult to even go around the topic.
Lisset King:Yeah, you know, everyone has their own relationship with it. You know, I know there's like some were baptized, some got baptized to get married in the church, but not necessarily. My brother went to Catholic school and he had his own weird stuff on that, you know, and I would say probably my oldest brother still goes to church, but no one talks about God, if you know what I'm saying. You know, so they all have their own very private relationship with it. I remember the time when my, my sister was so mad because she didn't get to have christmas growing up and her birthday is on christmas. And one day she was just like fuck this, I'm having christmas. And she, like christmas exploded in the house. It was like christmas lights and all these things. And from that moment forward it was like christmas became a thing in my house, but I wasn't. It wasn't until I was like 12. And it was Santa and lights. You know it was Santa's birthday. It wasn't about Jesus, yeah.
Goddess Brittney King:Also, interestingly, your name. Can you tell everybody your name? Yeah?
Lisset King:So I discovered later in my life, as I'm like looking up, you know names and what they mean. My name has a hebrew origin and it stands for god's promise and I'm like. Well, how about that?
Dr. Shadow Mike:yeah, oh yeah, the, the. What is it? The grand organized design.
Lisset King:Yeah.
Dr. Shadow Mike:Yeah, and the promise of that. I mean that's beautiful, so beautiful.
Lisset King:Yeah, so that's my story. Yeah, thanks for listening. Yeah.
Goddess Brittney King:Mike how was your first experience looking at the shadow.
Dr. Shadow Mike:It was probably when I was pastoring and I was simultaneously working at a church that was all about bringing people in and like really kind of front door oriented, like we want to get people in, but once you're in it's like we just want we are going to get. You know, we're going to build more numbers, more people. At the same time I was working for an organization that was doing a lot of shadow work stuff and like initiation retreat work. It was also Christian or I would say like kind of the Christ oriented element there, but it was so different, right Cause you could swear and you could like step into like the deep, dark, icky stuff in your life. And I would like see people in my church who had been in church for decades. They go on one initiation retreat and their life has changed. And I saw this time and time again and to the point where as a pastor I was an associate pastor I got to the point where I didn't. I would stand up to preach on a Sunday morning and I would look out and see no one I knew. That was the last Sunday I preached and I saw no one I knew, because everyone that I invited on these retreats could no longer be in that space. It was uninhabitable to their life, a life that was evolving, and they couldn't stay in this small boxed in container anymore. But, like, I think there was many, I think, for me.
Dr. Shadow Mike:You know, I was the kid in high school that got up at 5am to pray, to read my Bible. I had a Bible that was. Everything was underlined and highlighted. I was the president of FCA, I had started a Bible study that met three times a week at my public high school and I had a, I had, a very clear like track record of how many people I had led to the Lord. I mean, I was, I was this kid and, um, I had dedicated my life to this, far before I ever went to seminary. Um, years and years of this, I knew the Bible like I talked in the Bible, it was a part of me and so in some ways, to be honest with you, it is almost as though, like, I had this span of time where I went to seminary and it became clear that I had to become a professional Christian if I wanted to really do this, and then to the time I left, it was probably maybe eight years of time.
Dr. Shadow Mike:That never felt right. It never really aligned, because what I actually experienced here even though it was young and undeveloped and really, you know, kind of regressive Now it would be then it was helping me form an ego. It helped me form like a sense of identity in high school and in college. And then what I think about God now that you know it's much more expansive, the, the falling away from that God image, kind of felt like, yeah, that makes more sense now I don't. I felt like I was in a bit of a dream state, um, living out this professional thing. That was never mine.
Dr. Shadow Mike:But I'll just add this part that my God image, probably until about three years ago, four years ago, still had a massive problem with sexuality and therefore I had a massive problem with sexuality. So the uncovering of that it was only by virtue of moving towards my sexuality and then looking up and realizing okay, I'm still here, god isn't angry at me. Oh, life's getting better. Interesting that unfolding is it's even where I'm at Like. Am I okay? Can I continue to breathe when I'm sexually engaged Like? Or am I bracing that fear response of something is not safe here. That's a huge part of this for me and the God image that I grew up with was highly anti-sex. You know ironically, but yeah.
Goddess Brittney King:Gosh, it's just so, oh, it's so interesting, it's juicy. Like, oh, I'm so thank you, listener, for writing this, just for us to be having this conversation, cause it's just bringing up so many colors and so many images, and like, wow, I'm just like three Bible studies a week in high school, like I mean, like, like you know what I mean, and just the parts that don't feel right versus the parts that do, and I feel like that really ties into my story about. You know, I grew up I'm a pastor's kid, so my, my dad was a minister and we were Christian and he started preaching out of Baptist church, so then we became Baptist.
Dr. Shadow Mike:So so it was like what else things?
Goddess Brittney King:like I don't, I don't know, but like then we were. So that's what we were and I had these experiences as a kid that just felt very different than how I hear a lot of other people talk about growing up in a Christian religion. Like my dad's spiritual father, like the man who he was close to, who was like a higher pastor than him, who, like this, was a gay man and he had a farm with chickens and we would hang out at his house and it was uncle. I won't say his hang out at his house and it was uncle. I won't say his name, but his uncle. But I was just like. But I was like I was never told.
Goddess Brittney King:Like being gay was wrong. Like my parents drank on occasion my mom loved a margarita, like they drink, and like we would go on family vacations to Las Vegas, you know. So it's like. It's just there was a lot of things going on and I just there was a lot of things going on and I just remember there was like also, my dad's energy was very domineering, very like this is right, this is wrong. I remember one time we got up to go to the bathroom during church and he ended up beating us after cause he was like this is wrong and like you were disrespectful to God and all these different things. And it came out very explosively one Sunday morning that when he didn't show up for church and his best friend pinch hit preach for him, it came out that he had two families and had two churches and he was at his other church in a different state.
Goddess Brittney King:And I just remember like as a child, like I still can kind of like drop into it because it was so confusing for me, because I remember first we all thought he was like missing or gone or hurt or something like that, so like people were asking me for information and like I don't know if I had ADD or whatever OCD, but I just knew his license plate because I was a kid who knew a lot of license plates, so like license plate. And I remember other adults like kind of asking me for information. But I was like am I allowed to say this? But am I not allowed to say this? And it all was very upsetting. And then we were shunned from the church and it was like hey, you and your family are not allowed to be here. And I just remember feeling really hurt.
Goddess Brittney King:I felt abandoned by God and I also felt like really fucking confused, cause I was like we've been here every Sunday talking about friendship and fellowship and all these other things from the Bible, and like someone made a mistake or whatever, but like now, people who I've thought were my family don't talk to me. And so it was just like this. And I remember I was like okay, I think I'm done with God, like and and and what you said about like having the God, imaging your father. I was like the more I understood more colors of my father, the less I wanted to have to do with God, cause I was like this my experience of God is vengeful, abusive, emotionally manipulative. There's not enough praise that you can give, but the that, like, the like, like, and it was all these really insidious things. And I just remember I was like I'm done with God.
Goddess Brittney King:And it wasn't until my own like healing and spiritual awakenings that I started to come back and I felt very resistant to the church in all forms, but I started to discover God in nature and in trees and in yoga and in being with my body and in dancing and all these things like that. And I mean what felt most resonant to me was claiming I'm a witch and I was just like this is my relationship with spirit and it's been my own evolution to even use the word God, because I was just like, oh, I don't want to be judged. Everyone has these different images. It's you know, know, I'm not liberal enough if I'm talking about god, like like all these, like you know, the stories, the stories, the stories, the stories, um around it, and it's been like for me just like an ever evolving evolution. But to like look at the shadow, I was just like very much like nope, if god is this experience at this church deuces, like Like I'm done.
Dr. Shadow Mike:I just want to say, like y'all, I haven't, I haven't told you this, but y'all's usage of God actually has been kind of this like final stage of healing in that area for me, because I hadn't really used it in a long time, for the same reasons that you just mentioned. Right, because it comes with a lot of assumptions if you use it in certain contexts. Right, because, like, I can use that with you all, because when I say it you know that I'm not talking about some sort of really tightly wound structure. But for a lot of people, right, that that word is highly triggering and it's related to you know what we could call a God complex. Not like I'm so big and I'm like God that's how it's often used but this complex of, like associated beliefs and ideas, experiences and traumas that really just kind of wait in the unconscious. And as soon as something related to that complex hits, that's what we mean when we say it's triggered.
Dr. Shadow Mike:And from a Jungian perspective, when a complex is triggered, the whole thing, that whole complex comes forward and Jung would say it takes over the conscious personality. It's like this is the only thing that exists. And now that complex is driving your life and and and and essentially keeping you in this almost like zombie, like state moving through life. It can at least where you're like, yeah, you're alive, you look alive to everyone, but you're, there is something that's inhabited a very one dimensional part of you, that kind of split off and now has come back in as taking the steering wheel. It's such a it can be such a destructive complex when there isn't a way forward. And I'll say a lot of times what people will do to find a way forward is they will cut off the archetypal energy or they'll attempt to and, like what you're saying, like I don't want anything to do with God.
Dr. Shadow Mike:People will say, oh, I'm an atheist now, and when someone says that they're an atheist, I'm like, yes, this is great, I'm really.
Dr. Shadow Mike:This is a good spot. This is such a good spot to be in because if you want to cultivate an image of God that is authentic and native to your soul, then you're going to have to go through a time of separation from the old image. I mean, this is initiation 101. If you want to step into the transformational space, you have to separate from the old space, and that is often a painful experience. It's often a it's a death. It's a death experience and for someone who has been entirely controlled, entirely manipulated and had no agency in their life because of their God image, separation from that oftentimes looks like them taking complete control of their image of God, which is that it is non-existent. So if anyone's listening to this and either been in that state, knows someone in that state or wants to even pull into that label, move go to where the energy is, because it likely has a gift for you. If you feel like you need to separate from all that stuff in order to really start to build something new.
Goddess Brittney King:Yeah yeah, this is such a powerful conversation. So, for our listener, who is struggling with feeling like they can't take steps forward, they're in the space of fear If you and I know this is such a like, this is deep work. Fear, if you and I know this is such a like. This is deep work. This is nuanced work, this is personal work. And is there something that you would offer them as a place to start to like, start to ask themselves certain questions? Is there a meditation, a practice? You know, I know, we are, all of us work in the space of transformation and not in the space of like. Here's a quick fix you just take a pill and it's gone. And if there's anything that we can offer to this person like, what would you share?
Dr. Shadow Mike:Yeah, it's a really powerful question and it is. It is so complex, you know, when there's a, when there's some kind of, when there's some kind of complex or massive amounts of stuck energy around this idea of God, it's almost. It's like it's nearly suffocating. I just want to even like, acknowledge that like it's suffocating because where can you?
Dr. Shadow Mike:go. You know it feels like if I reach out for support. You know it feels like if I reach out for support, uh, all the people that I'm supposed to reach out to would just tell me the thing that I've always known. But I feel like I can't go there anymore, um, but like I feel wrong, or even like there's something like not good about going to someone, someone who's outside of that tradition, and I think it really requires it requires reaching out for support. Honestly, like I don't.
Dr. Shadow Mike:When someone's stuck in that place, I don't think that there's a practice they can do, because, essentially, spiritual practices have a relative compulsion to the overwhelming anxiety that they experience around their spiritual lives, which is their whole life, right, and and so I remember going through it during seminary, I went through the darkest night of my soul and it was this. You know, to go back to your question, that was probably where I confronted my God image actually, I'd forgotten about it because it was so big, but it was like I believed that God had a very specific plan for my life and I didn't know what it was first of all, but then I also wanted to marry my, my, my ex partner, and, uh, and it felt like I was, you know, I was going to do the wrong thing regardless. And, um, I had to get to a point where I essentially said I can't trust what's happening on the inside of me anymore. Like I actually have to surround myself with people who will tell me the truth, like tell me, tell me, goodness. Like the truth is a complicated word for Christianity, but like the that will tell me that I'm okay, that will, that will be there, like that that will ask me questions, or just let me sit with them. That's why I won't be alone, or just let me sit with them, so I won't be alone. I think that that's a huge part of this is reaching out for support and getting honest with the messages, the stories, the ruminations, the intrusive thoughts.
Dr. Shadow Mike:There's a word OCD is kind of like an overused diagnosis, kind of like narcissism, right, and OCD there's not. There are different kinds of OCD, but really it's just OCD. And then that OCD tends to focus on whatever you value the most. So if you really really value relationships guess what? There's our OCD relationship OCD If you really really really value your spiritual life and you want to follow God. That OCD If you really really really value your spiritual life and you want to follow God, that OCD will attach and it's called a religious scrupulosity OCD. So you almost get to this point where you feel like you have to be perfect, you have to do everything right and in that state you almost can't trust what you're feeling. So, moving towards community, moving towards people who know the inner workings of what's happening and can guide you, I think it's. I think that's honestly like the only thing I've seen work. I don't think I've ever known anyone who's like, yeah, okay, okay, I had a lot of anxiety that I was going to hell and then I think I'm good now.
Lisset King:I meditated once and now we're good. Yeah, I would love to speak to the poly piece. You know, the moving toward open relationships like there. That's such an important space to find community. Yeah, more than anything, because when you're doing poly, you're already doing something that's so fringe. And if you go to a pretty standard or stereotypical, therapist or religion or anything, they're just they're going to tell you that your problem is being poly, you know, or being in a non monogamous. They're like, well, that's your problem. If you weren't in that, if you weren't doing that thing that wasn't standard, you wouldn't have problems. That's just says the 60% of people that are divorced, you know.
Lisset King:So my invitation there is, you know, just seek out community. I know I've created a space here in Portland where people can come get some support being poly and navigating that space. But that's one of the foundations is, you can't seek help where people aren't doing the thing you want you want to move toward. And so there there comes this point where you have to lean into the self-acceptance of who you are, because the more I've healed, the more I've come to terms with my homosexuality. The more I've healed, the more I've come to terms with being like oh yeah, polyamory is just like.
Dr. Shadow Mike:That's how my heart works, you know, and if anyone, if anyone's poly, it's god loving everybody, everybody yeah, he's a whole yeah, I I mean I love that you brought that forward, because that's literally like that is like the thing that's hidden in plain sight. I mean, like the, the, the thing furthest from the common Christian myth image of God is monogamy, like like you're talking about a God who literally is in relationship with billions of people and and you know a lot of like how people just commonly think about God as this kind of solitary man, uh, with a son, and then like a spirit that seems to kind of float around somewhere. But like, if we want to get like really clear about like the theological framework in like what is dogmatic? Um, it's the doc. It's, well, it's the doctrine of the trinity and that, in and of itself.
Dr. Shadow Mike:I have, as you all know, a version of it right back here that you have in your house and, um, it is three people sitting at a table and this it's an. You know the, the, the icon of the trinity is rube loves trinity. There's a, uh, russian, uh, iconographer who created this image and the original it has the three God persons around a table, and then the original icon actually had a mirror in the table at the front, and so a viewer of the icon would approach the table and when they got close to it, it was big. It wasn't tiny, it was big. And when they got to it they could see their reflection at the table and the invitation here is that there's room for you at the table Right.
Dr. Shadow Mike:And so, like, even in my poly journey, it was like the idea of kitchen table polyamory, like I had a God image for that. You know what I mean. Like that felt actually more true to love and to wholeness than like this idea that there was some kind of rigid, perfect way that we had to do things. That was like wouldn't have been loving in my situation, it would have been very traumatizing for everyone and and, like this, felt like yeah, okay, my God image is evolving.
Dr. Shadow Mike:That's a huge piece of this too. Like the image of God has to continue to evolve. If it stays stagnant, it's basically like keeping the light shining in one area and when you do that, the opposite tends to start to get pretty moldy, you know, and it doesn't get the same, the same nourishment that what is illuminated does. And so, by virtue of this idea of wholeness and moving towards integration, our God image has to shift so that our shadow can be seen If it stays in this one spot, we essentially will develop a very rigid, unlived life, the shadow, and then that will kind of end up, as we know, directing and guiding our lives from the unconscious.
Goddess Brittney King:Yeah, yeah, I mean, yeah, I feel like my experience in organized religion was the seeing that or feeling that or experiencing that from those who are practicing a really stiff practicing a really stiff thing and a really big shadow, really big, and a beach ball experience.
Lisset King:The closer you are to the light, the bigger the cat, the shadow you cast that's exactly it yeah yeah, this is.
Goddess Brittney King:I mean, this has just been gosh such a beautiful conversation yeah, mike.
Lisset King:If someone wanted to work with you, reach out to you, how would they find you?
Dr. Shadow Mike:Yeah, you can just go to shadowmikecom and on there you'll see that it goes straight to my homepage where you can book a discovery call. So I do a free 30-minute discovery call and one of the unique things I bring when it comes to this kind of work is I have clients that I meet with like over the long haul, right, long tail. We do work over the course of time, but I like to create what I call journeys, shadow work journeys, and those shadow work journeys are, you know, either in three, six or eight session journeys, and it depends on what somebody is like senses that they're needing to do, and the more you know, the more is you know into this like deep, deep, deep area of their life that they didn't know was there, or they're just kind of dipping their toe into this or like, oh my God, I need to do this. I didn't realize this was for me.
Dr. Shadow Mike:Whatever the stage of life, like if you feel like life has brought you to some kind of threshold that you're trying to negotiate like should I stay, should I go, should I walk through this or should I just like put blinders on and pretend like nothing happened? Like if you find yourself in that kind of wrestling. You're likely at an initiatory threshold. I love helping guide people through that and into whatever is next. I love helping guide people through that and into whatever is next. So that would be like if you want to work with me, let's do a shadow work journey six to eight sessions and then we can renegotiate. At the end we're like, okay, I think we need to do some more. It'll be kind of a collaborative process there, but schedule a free discovery call and let's talk and just feel the energy and if it's there, yeah, yeah.
Lisset King:You've just been such a joy and light in our life, like seriously. We met at a networking event and it's just been game on, it's been spectacular. We've been sharing each other's magic. It's, it's wonderful, thank you for being in our life.
Dr. Shadow Mike:Y'all like seriously your work, your life, just your. I call your house. It's a womb, you know, and it has transformed me every time I have come your direction and here shameless free plug. But if anyone is interested in going to the Huna workshop, coming up, please do that, because it it is. It is the best value that you can find. It changed my life and has brought me into my next season almost with like a sense of wholeness.
Lisset King:I did not think was possible Love y'all so much. And that was our word from our sponsor.
Dr. Shadow Mike:I'm your sponsor today.
Lisset King:Thank you so much. Appreciate that. Thank you.
Goddess Brittney King:Love you, mike. Wow, mike brought it today. I mean that conversation. I did not know where it was going to go. Also, love that we found out how gifted our friend was. As far as like, I don't, I want to call them adornments. What do you call it, accolades?
Lisset King:Accolades, yeah, we did not know it was Dr Shadow Mike. Did not know it's Dr Shadow Mike Until today. With Dr Shadow Mike, with Dr Shadow Mike.
Goddess Brittney King:What has been your big takeaway from that conversation?
Lisset King:What was something that just like hit or popped or the developmental stage you know, talking about how your first image of God, like how it moves through your life, that was so profound for me to just discover I'm like, well, I didn't think I had trauma, it's just capital T, middle case, lowercase, all the things it's still there and how collective we hold it. Yeah, I mean.
Goddess Brittney King:I thought it was beautiful hearing us all our first like turn to look at God experiences. But the thing that spoke to me the most as a child who formerly used to lie a lot the thing about the developmental, about the lying I was just like the understanding of that is staged to form your own reality. And when that is stifled I was just like I mean TikTok, you can see me coming about control and fear and powerlessness and all these other different things. But I was just like wow, that ability to create your own reality. And this is where the caller was finding challenge. And so just having that awareness for oneself of like, oh okay, maybe I'm not broken, maybe there's nothing wrong with me, maybe it's. This was part of my conditioning and now that I have awareness about it, now I can take action to make different choices in my life.
Lisset King:Oh man, mike is just a wizard. Call him get your shadow work done he. It will have passed by the time this started. He's having a two week thing and it's just like yes, mike, we'll be there, we're going to, we'll be at the next one, you, we will keep you posted on those.
Goddess Brittney King:Absolutely, absolutely. So check out his links below. Reach out to him, and you heard about his experience at Huna. He actually has a very beautiful long form testimonial um that you can check out on Lissette's page. But if you are interested in coming to HUNA, now is the time. It is a great time.
Lisset King:Yeah, we'll be having our HUNA June 21st and 22nd and, like you said, this is the value we provide at HUNA the amount of release work that you'll get to do digging into anger, sadness, fear, guilt and shame and letting it go and releasing a major limiting belief and then the initiation that you get to experience there. Talk about an initiation. Oh yeah, yeah, you are going to be invited into the next level of your life.
Goddess Brittney King:So the link is below for that as well, and if you have a question, if something's been on your heart, on your mind or you just want to share with us. This is what I got from that episode. We love those kinds of texts, we love those kinds of messages. Give us a call at 971-895-4111. We love to hear from you.
Lisset King:And until we meet again, be honest with each other. Bye.
