Religion, Faith Crisis and Human Design with Christie Inge

Rebecca:

Welcome to Beautifully Bloomed, the podcast where we explore how to break
you out of the box of rules and beliefs that are holding you back from the
life you are meant to live. I'm your host, Rebecca Tervo. Join me as I
share mindset tools, coaching conversations, and Human Design to help you
uncover your unique gifts and create the life, relationships and business
you desire.

Rebecca:

Today I have Christie Inge as my guest and she is a fellow Human Design
teacher. I'm really excited to talk with her today in our topic about
religion. And especially, I like talking to people who grew up in kind of
an Orthodox or fundamentalist type of religion like I did, and have somehow
transitioned from that. Thank you, Christie, for joining me today, because
it sounds like there's some fascinating things we get to talk about. I'm
like, yes, sounds like my kind of conversation. But first of all, I just
want to know, because you told me that you grew up in a Southern Baptist
and Pentecostal or was it somehow together? I don't understand that.

Christie:

So it was, I did go to Southern Baptist Churches and Pentecostal Holiness
Churches. So there was a difference in what type of church we went to based
on the conditions within my family. So my dad was an alcoholic, and when he
was on benders, we would be shipped off to church on the church bus and
that was a Southern Baptist Church. And then when he was off the wagon or
on the wagon, whatever you call it, sober, we would go to the Pentecostal
Holiness Church, which was the church that his mother went to. And so as
children, we were back and forth, back and forth. And I didn't know until
as much later.

Christie:

Well, I knew that there were differences in the church because the services
are incredibly different and the vibe is incredibly different, but I didn't
understand what any of that meant. And I don't know what type of religion
you were raised in, but there was a very fundamental quality under all it
all.

Rebecca:

There's rules.

Christie:

Yeah.

Rebecca:

Like you don't follow these rules, you're going to go to hell, that kind of
thing, right?

Christie:

Absolutely, yeah.

Rebecca:

That's what I grew up in.

Christie:

Yeah. Like you were born bad.

Rebecca:

Yes. Oh yeah. We're very sinful, and we need-

Christie:

Just for being born.

Rebecca:

Yes. We're super sinful. So we need to be this poor sinner, right? Yeah.

Christie:

Yeah.

Rebecca:

That is so heavy. Even though when you're telling me again, I'm like, "Oh
yes, that poor sin thing."

Christie:

And it was painful. It was painful as a child.

Rebecca:

It was painful. So until what age did you do this back and forth? Until 18
or?

Christie:

So I had my first, what I would consider to be faith crisis when I was
around 17 or 18 years old. I don't remember. Time is not my strong suit. I
have three right arrows in my chart. But late teens, I had what I would
consider to be my first crisis of faith, and basically my whole life
growing up in the different churches and the influence of the religious
people because my whole family was very religious. And I had always had
these very, very conflicting experiences in church. The preacher would say
something and I would get these remarkable chills, and my body knew there's
something here. And then like three second later, it's like, "And you're
damned to hell." Then my body would be like, "No, wait."

Christie:

And so it was very confusing feelings because I had deep resonance with
parts of it. And my parents, we never had conversations about it. Of
course, we didn't. And so by the time I got into my late teens, I was
pissed. I remember like standing in my parents' kitchen and I yelled at
them. I said, "I don't believe in God anymore," and I stomped out of the
house. And literally before I was even out of the driveway, I received a
phone call that my grandmother had died. And I thought, for sure, God was
punishing me. And so shortly after that, I ended up on drugs and I was on
drugs for most of my 20s. Married a drug dealer. And around the age of 28
for Saturn return, one of my brothers died. Both of my brothers have died
since then.

Christie:

And that was so between like the late teens and that Saturn return, that
first Saturn return in hindsight, I can see that I was running from myself,
I was running from the deeply conflicting spiritual emotion because I have
always had now what I identify as like a spiritual longing, like that
longing to be close to the divine and to know God, and so drugs and
alcohol.

Rebecca:

So did you think the drugs though could bring you closer to God? I mean,
was that the thought?

Christie:

No.

Rebecca:

Okay.

Christie:

So the drugs and the alcohol just started as like a rebellion towards my
parents, and I think a rebellion towards my entire upbringing. Like I was
always the good child. I never did anything wrong.

Rebecca:

The good girl, yes. I get it.

Christie:

But I was always treated as if I was doing everything wrong. And so it was
just a time of like deep rebellion. In hindsight, I'm 45 now. In hindsight,
I can look back at that time and I can see that I was running away from
myself. I think as a coach, you definitely know what I mean when I say
like, I didn't even have the skills to navigate any of that.

Rebecca:

But were you taught that there's no thinking or needing to learn anything?
Like just have faith and just listen to what the preacher says?

Christie:

Yeah, you pray. Yeah.

Rebecca:

Yeah. You don't go and learn it from a book or you don't go find out the
information.

Christie:

Right. And there was a big, and even still today, things like going to
therapy or anything like that is completely frowned upon, like frowned
upon. You don't do anything like that. The answer is prayer and prayer and
prayer.

Rebecca:

Yes. I just can't believe this. I mean, if you don't know anything about my
story, my son died by suicide when he was 17. I felt at that point I needed
therapy and he must therapy, although we didn't know it, but if we would've
known it, I would've definitely had therapy, but I felt like that was a
message too. It's like, oh, and they're not Christians. And of course,
Christian, what does that mean? Our type of Christian. They're not our type
of Christians.

Christie:

So I have really interesting story about that. So my first husband, he was
a drug dealer and I was at my wedding shower for marrying him, and it was
with the church ladies. And one of the church ladies, she said to me, "So
what religion is he?" And I said, "Oh, he's Lutheran." And she said, "Oh
honey, we have plenty of time to find you a nice Southern Baptist husband
before you get married." And she was serious.

Rebecca:

Yeah. Oh no, exactly. Yeah.

Christie:

Like she was serious.

Rebecca:

Very serious.

Christie:

And I'm like, I remember having a conversation with my mom and she was
arguing with me that Catholics aren't Christian.

Rebecca:

Exactly. I found every church says this. This is what every church says.

Christie:

Yeah. It's crazy to me.

Rebecca:

We're the only ones that are going to heaven.

Christie:

We are the ones that have the answer. Everyone else's wrong.

Rebecca:

They're in the darkness. They're in the darkness. I'm like, oh.

Christie:

Yes, pray for their souls. Pray for their souls.

Rebecca:

Exactly. They need to find their way to whatever. I'm like, "Oh my, yes."

Christie:

Yeah. Totally.

Rebecca:

Yes. And so we were also encouraged, marry a Christian husband. Now what
does Christian mean, again? It's within our church. You've got to marry in
our church or else, you know what? You're not going to agree where your
kids should be raised, all of this stuff.

Christie:

All of that stuff.

Rebecca:

So you had the same stuff. Yes. I get it.

Christie:

Yes, there's no different flavor apparently.

Rebecca:

For sure. So I was curious, were there any rules as to how... Well, there
were. Like, was alcohol some bad, simple thing. And when you were in the
church, there were these rules about [crosstalk 00:09:07]?

Christie:

I have learned about other religions, so like Mormons, for example. I know
that they have very stringent rules about that kind of thing. And the
churches that I was raised in, it was more like an unspoken kind of thing.
It definitely wasn't the way I interpret, I've never been to a Mormon
church, anything like that. So I don't know for sure. But from what I've
heard-

Rebecca:

Definitely, yes.

Christie:

Where I grew up, it was more like a vibe, it was unspoken.

Rebecca:

Right. I mean, we don't have like written laws or something, but believe
me, if you are doing things outside what we think are the right rules, then
you're not really acceptable. So you're kind of also on the fringes. You
get kicked out of the tribe. Like people shouldn't be hanging out with you.
Yeah. They shouldn't be hanging out with you. And certainly their kids
should not hang out with your kids because something bad could happen. So I
find that to be just so hard because as a teenager, it's like when you're
trying to decide who you are, you're not really given the opportunity to
decide who you are because you're going to be kicked out if you're not
following all the rules. Yeah. I mean like the Amish, what do they call it?
Do they call it banish?

Christie:

I think they call it banishing.

Rebecca:

Yeah. Something like that.

Christie:

Shunning, they call it shunning.

Rebecca:

I knew it wasn't banishing. Shunning, and I feel like that is what happens.
But see, they actually give their teenagers a chance. They send them out
into the wild wilderness and say, "Go do all the things," and then if you
decide to come back and get baptized, now make a commitment. But that's not
really how it works in our church. There's no opportunity to really go and
experience anything.

Christie:

For sure. Yeah. Very similar. Like, no, this is the way.

Rebecca:

Yeah, this is the way. For us if you want to wear makeup, if you want to...
Now me, I started wearing nail polish. If you want to wear nail polish, no,
no, no. There's no makeup earrings, nail polish, no dancing.

Christie:

Oh, we didn't do that. You were expected to be in your makeup.

Rebecca:

Really? So this is what I'm talking about. I started going to all the
different churches finding out the different rules. I'm like, well, wait,
how can this all be true? I don't get it. These people are so certain that
their rules are true. Then these people are so certain that their rules are
true. It didn't resonate with me. Like, I don't get it. How come the
Mormons can wear makeup, but I can't? It just didn't make sense to me. And
then I started going down the path, yeah, here's some manmade stuff. These
are all the rules made up by men to tell us [crosstalk 00:11:56].

Christie:

All the different rules from all the different people. Yeah.

Rebecca:

Super fun. So you got married at 28?

Christie:

No, I was in the process of getting divorced when I was 28. So I married at
23, 24.

Rebecca:

So he was supposedly in your... Not really, you weren't really in your
religion anymore, right?

Christie:

No.

Rebecca:

Not at all.

Christie:

I was too busy drinking and doing drugs for that. And we had also moved
away. We had moved to Virginia and I'm originally from North Carolina.
Yeah, we were married for four years.

Rebecca:

28 Saturn return. Your brother dies, which is interesting because my
brother died when I was 28. Well, I was 27. He died of cancer. He was my
baby brother. He died of cancer because that's the only thing I found that
really happened around my Saturn return because you know how we talk about
these times in our lives, right? And I was like, what happened when I was
27? Well, my brother died of cancer when I was 27, and your brother died.

Christie:

Yep, he did.

Rebecca:

Did he also die of cancer?

Christie:

No. He died in a car accident.

Rebecca:

So yeah, I used to think it would've been easier if he died in a car
accident, he wouldn't have to suffer, all the things we think about when we
lose people. Anyways, so 28, when is your real opportunity to think about
your faith or what you truly believe? I mean, when you had drugs all that
time, that wasn't really the opportunity, right?

Christie:

Yeah. So I think for me, like the first time in my life where I really
started to explore who am I as a person because it was when I was going
through divorce from my first husband because he couldn't afford the house,
and so I stayed in the house and he moved back to North Carolina. So now
after 28-ish years, 27, 28 years, because we were separated for a while
before the divorce was actually final. But anyway, I was living alone for
the first time in my life. And so I was 200 miles away from my family, knew
basically no one because we had moved to Virginia knowing no one. And that
was when I started to realize and like in Human Design we talk about being
in your own aura and spending time in your own aura and letting your energy
decondition from all of the influence.

Christie:

I think that I just had a massive time of that because I lived alone,
didn't have a lot of friends. I did have a job that I went to everyday, but
I did spend a lot of time alone. And in that time I started to recognize,
like I knew my whole life that I was different. But during that time I
started to understand how I was different. Do you know what I mean? Like I
started to understand like what am I actually interested in and what am I
actually really curious about? And of course, at the time I didn't have the
language of Human Design, but started really discovering those things. And
I did do a little bit of like, I think what we all do when we have a faith
crisis and kind of go away. I started church shopping and oh, I just need
to find like a [crosstalk 00:15:22].

Rebecca:

A community or something.

Christie:

Yeah. Like I just need to find a different church and that didn't pan out.
But it was a really interesting time in my life because it was when I
started to recognize like, and again, I didn't have the language for it. I
hadn't been to therapy at that point. I didn't know Human Design coaching,
none of that stuff. But I just knew like, oh wait, I'm very different. Like
I'm not who I thought I was. And so that was a really critical time in my
life.

Rebecca:

Well, there's this thing about you think who you are depending on how you
were raised. Like they said, this is who you are, this is how you're here
to be, and in my church, we're all here to be this way. Like everybody's on
the same belief system and you all like dress the same, act the same, hang
out together. Like that's what I grew up with.

Christie:

That's what you do.

Rebecca:

Yes. And you didn't have time to think. I did the whole path. I got married
to a man from my church, which I'm still married to today, thank goodness.
I do appreciate that. However, like I did the path, you get married as soon
as you can, you start having babies as soon as you can. I followed path. So
while you are on drugs at that age, I was actually raising children and I'm
too busy to think of myself.

Rebecca:

In fact, our last daughter just graduated from high school, so for 29
years, our oldest son was 29. Our youngest daughter is 18 now. So I was
just raising kids, a family, doing the church thing. There's no time to
think about yourself and discover who you are. This is so interesting to
me. I mean, I did start right after our son died by suicide in 2012, I did.
I started to think about it. Like, do I believe this stuff? Because they
say suicide is a sin and your kid is going to hell and I'm like, I don't
know about that. Like there was a lot of questions that came up. So that's
me in the last 10 years trying to figure that out, right?

Christie:

Yeah.

Rebecca:

Not church shopping, but just like really learning about other things. I
mean, church shopping in the way of learning, I guess not going anywhere
else, but it's interesting. So you said church shopping, which to me,
religion is religion is religion and how does it solve-

Christie:

And that's how I found.

Rebecca:

Like how does it solve the problem, right?

Christie:

It doesn't, it doesn't.

Rebecca:

It's another set of rules by some different people.

Christie:

Yeah, different location.

Rebecca:

Yeah. I mean, and what I want to say too is I do believe religion can be
good for some people. It probably even saves some people's lives. I really
believe it does.

Christie:

A million percent. A million percent.

Rebecca:

But why can't they just let those of us who don't think it's for us just be
us? It's just like the exclusionary, there's not really total love and
acceptance in my opinion-

Christie:

Oh, definitely not.

Rebecca:

... in religion.

Christie:

Definitely not.

Rebecca:

And so you did this thing, you got divorced. Now you started finding...
This is in your 30s, right?

Christie:

Yeah, and then in my early 30s I met my current husband and I don't want to
spin the conversation off in an unintended direction, but learning about
our Human Design charts has been so revealing to me. So he has the 12-22.

Rebecca:

Me too.

Christie:

You do?

Rebecca:

And so does my husband. It's a lot of emotions around here.

Christie:

So again, I don't want to spin the conversation off in an unintended
direction, but to me, like I have that channel undefined. I don't have
either side and I receive that energy as the energy of grace and my husband
has been a vehicle of that for me.

Rebecca:

That's amazing.

Christie:

And in the beginning of our marriage, we did the thing where it was like,
because we met on eHarmony. I don't even know if that's a thing anymore.
And so we lived about 45 minutes apart. And then once we got married, I
moved to where he lived. So we started church shopping like here. And I
remember the last church we went to and we were both like, "No, never
again. This is fruitless. This is blunt." We just keep finding the same
thing. So like at that Saturn return, I started discovering like, oh wait,
like I'm not who I always thought I was.

Christie:

And then at this time, that last church, like the memory is so potent in my
mind, we like got in the car and we look at each other and we're like,
"What was that? Why would you want to go and sit through someone yelling
and telling you how horrible and sinful and shameful you are? Like, why
would you want to go do that every week?"

Rebecca:

Interesting.

Christie:

And the hell fire damnation thing. I was like, "I don't want to do this
anymore. We're just finding the same over and over and over again." And so
at that point, by divine intervention, I ended up in a yoga studio and that
really changed my path. That really changed my path. That opened me up to a
whole other realm of experiences, like a world that I didn't even know
existed. And I remember having conversations with people from my
upbringing, like you're going to end up in a cult and whole like thing.

Rebecca:

Now there have been some yoga cults because I've studied a lot of cults
too-

Christie:

Yeah, for sure, for sure.

Rebecca:

... well, that's not the norm.

Christie:

Right, and I mean, we could argue all day long about cults, but that for me
is when my perspective spiritually speaking really started to open up. In
yoga, I was having these experiences where that longing, what I now
identify as spiritual longing, like that spiritual longing was being
satisfied by practicing yoga and the meditation. And so I didn't understand
that. It was just like, it literally opened my eyes to a whole new world.
By that time I was coaching and I don't do one-on-one work anymore, but at
the time I offered one donation based client at a time and one of my
clients was a Methodist minister and I had some really profound experiences
coaching her. And so I'm a 5-2, I have transpersonal profile.

Christie:

And so she's definitely one of the people that changed my direction. Like
my husband is one of those people and she was one of those people. And she
introduced me to Richard Rohr. Are you familiar with Richard Rohr?

Rebecca:

Mm-mm (negative). Sounds familiar, but no. Tell me what it is. I'm not
sure.

Christie:

So Richard Rohr is amazing. His last book was called The Universal Christ.

Rebecca:

Okay, [crosstalk 00:22:21] of him. Yeah.

Christie:

So the Methodist minister, she told me like, "Read his book. It's called
Falling Upward."

Rebecca:

Okay. Falling Upward.

Christie:

Yeah. Like he's in his like 80s or 90s, so he's written multiple, multiple,
multiple books. And I'm not sure where Falling Upward falls in that
spectrum. I know it's not recent because this was over a decade ago. So
falling upward essentially the premise of the book is, is that spiritually,
we have two phases of life and I'm not sure that I agree that we only have
two at this point in my personal process, but his point was we have two
spiritual phases in our lives. In the first phase I can't remember what he
calls it. In the first phase are taught who God is and we're told who God
is. And we are conditioned to believe who God is and what God is and what
role God serves in our lives.

Christie:

And what happens, just like what you are sharing about your son is we start
to have these experiences in our lives that don't reconcile with what we've
been taught.

Rebecca:

Exactly.

Christie:

Yeah. We go into these crises of like, wait, no, this is not coming out in
the wash here. This isn't making sense. This isn't adding up. And he said,
"What most people do when they have those events is they collapse their
definition of God. They make God smaller." And he said, "But the invitation
is to make your definition of God bigger and your definition of God."

Rebecca:

Are you saying the differences between that, what I'm hearing is that some
people told me, because I used to be a coach for grief for parents and
who've lost children. And what they tell me is, "Oh, this has brought me so
much closer to God." Like they even get more into the narrow straight path.
That's what they experienced. Now, other people like me did not experience
that. We're like, "No, I don't believe that very limited view. There's all
this other [inaudible 00:24:37]." Is that what you're saying?

Christie:

Right. So like for me, when I yelled at my parents, "I don't believe in God
anymore," that was me collapsing my definition of God. I was making God
smaller part of my life. But that the invitation and the reason that we do
that, the reason that we collapse like that and start turning away from
what we've been taught is because our experience, we cannot reconcile that.
We cannot reconcile my son died by Sue suicide and is now on hell. No, it
doesn't, maybe for some people, maybe it does. For me, that's a no. Spleen
says no.

Christie:

So that completely changed my perspective and spiritually, that's what I
believed my practice is. Like if you were to say, what is your spiritual
path? It would be always expanding my definition of God and making God
bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger. And now I'm in a place where I
remember a few years ago, maybe three or four years ago, I came to this
place where it was like, oh, I'm included in the definition of God. Like
I'm part of it. And now it's like, oh I am it. We are all... I think of
like, God is pouring himself or herself or whatever, or itself, whatever
you want to call it into the human experience, into the earthbound
experience, and I think of it as like we're playing a game of divine hide
and seek with ourselves.

Christie:

And that's a far cry from where I started and I don't believe anyone else
needs to believe that just to be clear, but it's been this constant,
because I've had a lot of things go down. When I was 36, I learned that my
dad isn't really my dad. He's not my biological father. And I found out by
accident, had another brother die. Had a number of instances where before
that book, I would've collapsed. I would've collapsed further. And so for
me, it's just been like a surrender to like, if this doesn't reconcile, if
this doesn't make sense, go bigger, go bigger. Let God be bigger than you
believe.

Rebecca:

Exactly. Have you ever read those books by Neale? Is his name, Neale Donald
Walsch Conversations With God. There's like three [crosstalk 00:27:10].

Christie:

No, I've heard of him, but I haven't.

Rebecca:

Yeah. I'm just like on the third book now. Those are super fascinating,
because it really does, and some of the things you say just, well, they're
all in that book too. So yeah, really fascinating. So that's what I've been
doing too. I'm experiencing that, right? I'm like, well, I'm just going to
go see what all the different opinions and things are about religion and
how all the different people and where it came from and why do we believe
these things? And then I want to be able to form my own beliefs. Like
nobody needs to tell me how I need to believe. I don't need to tell them
how they need to believe.

Christie:

So I'm curious if in... So one of the things that has been really
fascinating for me in that process has been learning there are multiple
examples that stand out in my mind, but one of the most potent examples
that I've discovered that has really been fascinating to me is the
similarities in the stories and the myths. So I'm not sure how much you
have studied Hindu.

Rebecca:

Uh-uh (negative). I haven't done that one yet.

Christie:

One of the prominent gods in Hinduism is Hanuman. And when you look at
Hanuman's birth story, how Hanuman was born, he was conceived through
imaculate conception. And so when you look at the mythology and the stories
that surround these different religions, you start to see like, oh, that
golden thread that I knew was there the whole time, like that's there and
if you're looking for it, you can actually see it. And you can see that
this is just people's interpretation of that golden thread.

Rebecca:

Yeah. Even the Bible it's like, is it more just mythology? Like there's a
lot of...

Christie:

Have you read What is the Bible by Rob Bell?

Rebecca:

No. Sounds like an interesting one though.

Christie:

Yeah. Rob Bell was a pivotal person in my... There's also a documentary
about him called The Heretic.

Rebecca:

Hmm.

Christie:

Yeah. Check that out too.

Rebecca:

Yes. No, all of this stuff is super fascinating to me. So here's the
question I always have is, well, you left pretty young though. You were 18
when you left. But I mean, for me, the question is like, what about
community? Because I feel like one of the things that keeps people in
religion is community. Yeah. Especially in mine, and Mormons would say the
same thing as like this community, you feel safe and secure and everybody
believes the same way. So it's almost like you trust that when your kids,
if they could just stay in this community, they're going to be safe and
secure too, and they'll be blessed in their life and it'll all be wonderful
and we'll all go to heaven, all the things. So like what do you do now
about community or like you found a community or like, [crosstalk
00:30:05].

Christie:

What's your profile on Human Design?

Rebecca:

I'm a 1-4.

Christie:

Okay.

Rebecca:

So yeah, I need community.

Christie:

I had a feeling you're a fourth line.

Rebecca:

I need community.

Christie:

Yeah. And you're also personal destiny.

Rebecca:

You don't care so much about community.

Christie:

I really do.

Rebecca:

You're line too, right? Line two. Yeah.

Christie:

I'm a 5-2.

Rebecca:

That's interesting because my husband's a 2-4. There's that weird conundrum
with the two and the four.

Christie:

Yeah. So the fifth line, I mean, you know, I don't need to educate you on
what the fifth line is.

Rebecca:

Yeah, but just tell [crosstalk 00:30:38].

Christie:

But one of the things that we have tendencies to do is a fifth is like we
dip in and out, we dip in and out. We dip in and out, because what happens
is the way I explain it is like the projection field, particularly when
you're in a double projection field, the five and the two, it's like this
layer starts to build up, build up, build up, build up. And the thicker
that projection field become, the harder it is to maintain interdependent
healthy relationships because that projection field builds up. And so like,
I'm more of a like dip in and out kind of person.

Christie:

And this was something I discovered about myself long before Human Design,
which is why I love Human Design because it had affirmed all these things
that I had been discovering. But I do engage in community mostly online.
And I would say that if there were a local community, because we did try
joining the Church of Unity.

Rebecca:

Yeah. No, I've never heard of that one.

Christie:

So yeah, look into it. I don't want to rabbit hole on that, and that was
like, kind of okay. Yeah, and my husband is a 1-3, so he's like super...
We're not people, people.

Rebecca:

I funny that you say that. Yeah. [crosstalk 00:32:01].

Christie:

Yeah, but I do think that... I've never been able to find a community that
I actually want to dip into more. And so for me, it's not like, oh, I never
want to be a part of a community or anything like that. But for me, even
it's interesting I'm in a group, I'm not going to mention what group it is.
I'm in a group on Facebook and it's of a spiritual nature with a specific
spiritual teacher. And even within that, there's a lot of like these people
are right and these people are wrong. And so even more like-

Rebecca:

In any community, I wonder if you'll find-

Christie:

Yeah. And so for me, any of the like they're right, they're wrong, that's
just not my vibe. For me, I've witnessed what religion has done for my
mother and she is a completely different relationship with it than I do. So
for her...

Rebecca:

Yeah, it's great. Right.

Christie:

It's beautiful.

Rebecca:

Yeah.

Christie:

Right?

Rebecca:

Totally.

Christie:

And I think of our colleague Jody Moore. Like her religion is very
nourishing to her and I'm not trying to take that away from anybody, right?

Rebecca:

Exactly. Yes, we all can find our own thing, but within religion what I
found is so much judgment and the black and white thinking, right? It's
that black and white thinking that I think really minimizes your life and
who you get to be and what... So I am really cognizant of not going back
into another group that has that same thing.

Christie:

Yeah, and in my experience, it's been hard to find that.

Rebecca:

I get that.

Christie:

Like I have had better success connecting with people one-on-one, like
maintaining one on... Like I do have multiple one-on-one relationships
where-

Rebecca:

Yeah. Just one-on-one. I love it.

Christie:

Yeah. But I wouldn't close off to being a... Like when I was a part of the
yoga community, I enjoyed being a part of that community.

Rebecca:

Yeah. So for me, this is the big question right now. It's about
communities, right? It is. So I want to ask everybody the question it comes
on my podcast just talking about religion, like, what do you do from
community? Like religion brings you community. So that's the thing that I
found for me that feels so missing now yet, if I don't feel really part of
the group beliefs that they believe, I don't really feel loved and accepted
there either, and that's hard.

Christie:

Hey. Yeah.

Rebecca:

Yeah. So it's not okay, but this is me going through my Chiron return. This
is the big issue now to deal with. Like everything comes in the certain
stages of your life, and this is my stage of life. It's the issue-

Christie:

What's your Chiron.

Rebecca:

Oh, my Chiron is 21, which actually is about money and value. Was that what
you're asking? What is it?

Christie:

Yep. Is it on both sides?

Rebecca:

No, the other side isn't 21. I think it's 17. Yes, 17, which is opinions.
Interesting.

Christie:

Yeah, even like the 21, like I think of the 21 as like a, it's like a
manager of sorts.

Rebecca:

Resources. Yeah, like managers.

Christie:

Yeah. And so to me, there is a connection there if you think about a
community being a resource.

Rebecca:

Yes, because what's fascinating to me is what I'm really craving right now
is just to go out into the community and be part of it. So I started going
every week to United Way and volunteering a couple hours a week. I do it on
a regular basis just to find something, to feel connected to something.

Christie:

Yeah. That's one of the things that I was going to say is like, what I have
to be more fruitful is I like being a part of the coaching community. I
like being a part of the Human Design community. And of course, there's
crossover and spirituality with both coaching and Human Design, but that
has been more fruitful for me personally, is to engage in community.

Rebecca:

Well, that would be great if I live an area where there's more people. So I
live so far north. I'm way up in upper Michigan and very secluded. Our
nearest quote city would be three and a half hours away. So you know what?
I'm not in a place where I can just, oh, here's a new group to join. No,
there's not. So this has been even more of an interesting journey for me.
Like online, sure, I can find lots of friends in the community, but I
really like in person things, I like the connection. But it's part of the
journey I'm on, and that's why I'm doing these episodes right now because
I'm really curious, like what are other people experiencing? I know there's
so many other women out there who are having similar issues, so I hope that
these conversations can help them, right?

Christie:

Yeah, and that's what I was going to say is like, I think that these types
of conversations are important because this is how we start developing
these communities.

Rebecca:

Yeah. I know because that was even my thought. I'm like, I could form a
community? Actually it shows up really heavily in my chart that I'm here to
form communities, but I'm like, okay, what would that look like? Like I'm a
manifesting generator, so I could just do tens of million things that
[crosstalk 00:37:32].

Christie:

Was going to say, you can do 79,000 things.

Rebecca:

It stopped then I get overwhelmed myself and then nothing. It's like, I'm
like really looking at what do I want to commit myself to? So this is part
of this helping me figure that out, so thank you so much. [crosstalk
00:37:47].

Christie:

Yeah, just from the perspective of as a projector, what I can see is these
types of communities don't exist, not in the quantity that it takes to
build actual community around.

Rebecca:

Right. I know. It's something I'm considering, like I want to have
retreats, but I want to have after religion, like, well what can you do
with the retreat for that, right? Like after religion retreats. I don't
know what those look like.

Christie:

That sounds amazing.

Rebecca:

I'm conceptualizing right now. I'm just in my Gemini way just having all
these conversations-

Christie:

And I'm Gemini moon.

Rebecca:

I'm a Gemini and yeah, Libra moon.

Christie:

I'm a Libra sun.

Rebecca:

Oh cool. So we're like [inaudible 00:38:34]. So it's super fascinating. So
thank you. I love that we have so many good like Human Design astrology,
the same Libras and Geminis and it just feels like we have connections in
some ways and the religion piece, that is super fun. So thank you so much
for joining me, but before we go, can you tell us like, if people want to
find out what you do or what do you do? Like just tell us a few sentences
about that.

Christie:

Yeah. So I am the creator of something called the Human Design Map and
Deconditioning Toolbox. So it is a written guide that explains type,
strategy, authority profile and incarnation cross, and then includes online
coaching program for the deconditioning process where I teach those skills
that we were talking about before. Like how do you process your emotion?
How do you navigate? I think that spiritually we were going through a
deconditioning process long before Human Design made its way. And so giving
people the skills to actually be able to do that, the skills that
spiritually were taught, you don't need that. You don't need that. You just
pray. Yeah, so that's what I do and I love Human Design. I could talk about
Human Design for years apparently.

Rebecca:

Oh, me too. That's craziness.

Christie:

Years apparently. So I write, I do typically long form content. I don't
post on social media. So you can find all of my work at christieinge.com.
So I blog and then you can opt in into my email list. I have a gates cheat
sheet that you can opt into on my blog post. And then I send emails and
they're all about... And this was never intentional. Like I didn't have a
niche or anything like that. I've never wanted a niche is the people that
seem to be drawn to my work have had some sort of spiritual awakening
crisis where the religion of their childhood is not serving them, but they
still have that longing for a deeper spiritual life. So all of my content
has a very sort of spiritual, magical tone and very actionable because my
fifth line will have it no other way.

Rebecca:

And hey, I'm just curious. Where's your sun, like your personality sun?

Christie:

At 57.

Rebecca:

Okay.

Christie:

So I have the same incarnation cross as Rohr, just flipped. So he was
51-57. I'm 57-51. And then on the other side, I'm 62-61.

Rebecca:

If you're 51, hey, you're here to be provocative.

Christie:

And waking people apparently.

Rebecca:

Yeah. Get everybody going. Like, hey, hello.

Christie:

Yeah. So if people are interested in a very spiritual perspective,
non-religious, dogma free, check out my website. You'll either love me or
hate me.

Rebecca:

And that's how it's supposed to be for the five, right? So in the show
notes, I'll put a link to the website and stuff so everybody can find you.
Thank you, Christie for joining me for this fascinating discussion, which,
you know what? It went a great little deal longer than I usually do
episodes, but I think it was very fascinating.

Christie:

That's interesting.

Rebecca:

So it's going to be good.

Christie:

Yeah. Thank you.

Rebecca:

Thank you so much. If you enjoy listening to this podcast, please go
subscribe so that you get notified of all the future goodies that are
coming along. While you're there, please leave me a review and let me know
what you think. So excited to share this with you and can't wait to talk to
you next time, bye.