This is the almost awakened podcast, a no-nonsense approach to spirituality with your hosts, Brittany Hartley and Bill Reilly.

Here we dive deep into the wisdom traditions while acknowledging

insightful breakthroughs in science, psychology, and human development. Our goal is to explore

the good life and the very best of spirituality, no nonsense required. Check us out at almost

awakened.org, where you can check out past episodes, make a donation, email us a question

or comment, or find out more about the resources we shared. And now, today's podcast episode.

All right, folks. Good to see all of you. Bill Real here, Almost Awaken Podcast. I started this podcast a few years ago with a friend. McCullough was the original co-host of the show. And we started this podcast because so many folks were deconstructing their religious narrative.

And we wanted folks to have a place where as you're deconstructing, you could be prompted with sort of the topics that the rest of the world is talking about.

Right. Like when you grow up in a high demand fundamentalist religion, you are often insulated from the larger world that's

going on. And there are so many things that happen in a high demand fundamentalist religion in

terms of things that curb your sexuality, curb the substances that you might try or or take. It sort of sabotages

things that might provide real growth and are substituted by a program that, you know,

has you checking boxes, for instance. And when we did this podcast

years ago, it was, it was, the idea was to help all of you who are, are in the midst of

deconstructing or feel like you've stepped away from, from a religion. And you don't know what

to fill your life with. By the way, I got a new shirt. Trouble with this new shirt is if I button it one more, it's super tall of high. I don't like that. But if I leave it, the button is quite a bit lower and so it opens up too far. So I'm not really trying to show my chest or anything, but I just didn't want the thing buttoned all the way to the top. So folks, please excuse the shirt, but I really like it.

We wanted to give people the tools to start wrestling with things in science, psychology.

We wanted people to start looking in the mirror and working on themselves in a way that their religious paradigm sort of prevented them from doing.

Just using Mormonism as an example, Mormonism would substitute real development and growth.

Like I'm becoming a better human being, I'm doing shadow work, I'm being accountable to the unhealthy mechanisms that I have that I use to

control the world and the people around me. And I'm going to confront that and begin making real

substantial changes. And in a religious system like Mormonism, to be a good Mormon, you simply

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