Welcome to the Emancipate Your Mind podcast.

I'm your host, certified religious transition and trauma recovery coach, Terry Hales.

I help people step out of the shadows of religious fear and shame and embrace their

authentic selves with love and empathy.

If you're ready to throw off the shackles of learned binary thinking and explore

a more nuanced approach to life, this is your playground.

Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Emancipate Your Mind podcast. I am so excited for us to continue our

conversation with Chris Peck. He's a communications coach from Speak into Action. And he also has

gone through his own religious transition, his own journey through deconstruction. And so today we're continuing our conversation

from last week about being intentional in our relationships. And today we're primarily focusing

on building community after leaving high demand religion. So without further ado, let's hear

more from Chris Peck. So I'm interested, where did you start?

Right?

Because like you, you know, you and Kevin like deconstructed years and years ago.

But like what was that first step into finding a new community and new relationships for you?

That's a really good question.

And I don't think I was, I was intentional about it and also not intentional about it.

When it became apparent that Kevin and I would likely either remain because we weren't entirely sure.

We would either remain, but we would be outsiders or we would leave.

I became a Zumba instructor during that time because I knew I needed community.

And I knew, uh-huh.

So I got certified as a Zumba instructor so that I could be with people and have that

...