Mind Meets Machine is a video podcast by Avik where mental health, AI, and business collide in the most human way. Real conversations with founders, therapists, doctors, and creators. Practical tools, clear insights, and zero fluff. Learn to think clearer, work smarter, and live better in a tech-driven world.
Being told you are loved by God, but only if you become someone else, creates a special kind of loneliness. We slow down with that tension and ask a harder question: what does unconditional love actually mean when religion has been the source of shame, rejection, or fear?
We’re joined by Fenix Shepard, author of Loved Unconditionally, a spiritual memoir of trauma, addiction, recovery, and finding God beyond religion. Fenix talks about the common misconception she sees in clients and communities: that divine love is earned through compliance and “being acceptable.” We unpack how that belief harms LGBTQ people, divorced people, and anyone who has been pushed out by a condemning church culture. We also get specific about the emotional pattern that often follows religious trauma: shame, guilt, resentment, and pain that can turn into isolation, bitterness, and self-destruction.
Fenix shares her own story of being outed as a young teen, the impact of cruel words at home, two suicide attempts, and years of homelessness, addiction, and repeated trauma. From there, we turn toward recovery and spiritual healing, including therapy, workshops, hypnotherapy, neuroscience-informed techniques for easing anxiety, and the daily practice of prayer and gratitude. If you’re searching for faith after church hurt, trauma-informed spirituality, addiction recovery, or a path back to self-love, this conversation offers language and hope without pretending the pain was small.
If this resonates, subscribe to Mind Meets Machine, share the episode with someone who needs it, and leave a review so more listeners can find stories like Fenix’s. What’s one belief you’re ready to release so you can breathe again?
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Dearlessness, there's a particular kind of loneliness that comes from being told you are loved by God. But only if you are someone else, not the person you are now, not the truth you carry, someone smaller, someone quieter, uh, someone acceptable. And for people who have lived that contradiction, who have felt the weight of religious objection pressing against their own becoming, the journey toward healing is not about finding a different doctrine. It's about finding a love that doesn't ask you to disappear first. So dear listeners, this is Mind Meets Machine. I'm your host, Avik, and this is the space where we slow down, lean in, and talk about what it actually takes to live with more honesty, more tenderness, and a little more room to breathe. And today I'm speaking with a very lovely guest. Please welcome Phoenix Shippert. So welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_00
Thank you, Avik. I really appreciate that.
SPEAKER_01
Amazing, amazing. But tell us like before we get into the discussion, I'll quickly love interviews with Phoenix. So Phoenix is the author of Loved Unconditionally, a spiritual memoir of trauma, addiction, recovery, and finding God beyond religion. Trauma survivor and the spiritual mentor whose work explores the intersection of faith, identity, recovery, and the unconditional love. Yes. So I do not want to take much time. Let's get started. Welcome to the show again. Amen.
So Fairn's like a lot of people grow up hearing about God's love, but they also experience rejection or shame in the name of that uh same God. So uh what do you think is the most common misconception here that you have noticed about what it what it means to be loved unconditionally, especially for people who have been hurt by uh religion?
SPEAKER_00
Right. Uh there are some so even uh today one of my clients uh finally purchased my book and she's been reading it, and she is saying saying she's she was telling me like sh sh's a gay woman uh and she's also an entrepreneur. And she's been very afraid to read my book because she knows I talk about God. And and her first response to me was, you know, you're a reverend, you talk about God. And I was like, Well, yeah, I'm I'm also gay too. Yeah. And she's like, I used to be a Christian, but so many people tell me that God doesn't love me and I'm gonna go to hell. And she goes, So I want nothing to do with God. And I said, You know what? Why don't you read my book without, you know, judgment? Don't read it with judgment, just read it. And that's that is a common theme I hear a lot, even with straight people. I've met even a lot of straight people who have said, you know what, I'm divorced. I'm told I can't be divorced and be a Christian. There was another lady who is my friend, her name is Sophia. She was a Christian, a straight woman, had a child out of wedlock, and that church was like, no, you can't be a part of our church because you had a baby. You can't be a Christian and be out of wedlock and have a child. So I mean, regardless, gay or straight, doesn't matter. Gay or straight, come on, gay or straight doesn't matter. They're you're gonna get judged. You're so my thought is okay, how many things can we do wrong? Because in my opinion, the only one that is good is God. We we all make we are we all fall short. And there is so much grace, love, and grace. All God is asking us to do is love one another. Ask for forgiveness when we have harmed, even ask for forgiveness of ourselves and and always forgive, repent, forgive. Repentance means returning back to remembrance of what love stands for. And that's what uh a lot of unfortunately Christians are just so condemning in their own nature. They condemn each other and then they condemn us. And so as a child, even my father, and I love my mom and dad, I love my parents. My father, when I'm a twin and I have an older sister, and he would sit us down on a couch and he would pull up a chair and open the Bible, and it talked so stern to us. And it was like, whoa, what is this book? And like, why? What's going on? Yeah, that that is that was been my whole experience of trying to meet a God that was very mean and very vengeful and couldn't love anybody. So when I say I'm loved unconditionally in my story, I share what happened to me with Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Christ, how how he blessed me with the Holy Spirit, how he changed my life, him himself. Like it was a magical, a life-changing experience that I I talk about in my book so so intensely. And uh I that's what I'm like, I'm telling you. He always tells me, he calls me his. He says, I will never leave you nor forsake you. I love you just the way you are. I made you perfect. All I'm asking you to do is keep trying, keep trying to be a good person, keep trying to do the right thing, keep trying. And he goes, and anytime you need me, come to me and ask me to step in. And so that to me is the most unconditional love that I'm experiencing from God Himself. And he's telling me personally, hey, you are you're born just exactly as I made you. Love is love, and follow my ways. And I'm like, okay, then that I can do for you. That I can do for you. And that's how I live today with no regrets.
That's really amazing. I'd say and so when someone starts to realize that misconception has been shaping their entire relationship with themselves, what do you see them go through?
SPEAKER_00
Shame, guilt, resentment, pain. Those are always the four that any time that I talk to a lot of people, because I'm always communicating with people, always out there networking, you know, getting involved with community, I'm always asking questions like, you know, tell me your story. And it's always the same. Hey, my mom and dad kicked me out, my parents condemned me, uh, my parents beat me, my parents didn't protect me. Or, or the community, as a young, as a young adult, the community, uh, again, who claims to be religious, you know, shunned me out, pushed me out. And of course, now they're now they're left broken. So now in their minds, God doesn't love them. In their mind, they're broken, so therefore they feel bitter. That that that right there, feeling that that sense of bitterness, it it's attracting shame. So now you're exuding bitterness and pain. So what are you gonna go? You're going to attract more of that. And so therefore, now you're gonna do things because in your mind you're saying, well, God doesn't love me. Well, these people tell me they hate me. Well, then what is my life? Well, I'm gonna do what I'm gonna do and not have any consequences. But then that's when the internal shame starts to kick in. And you just you feel us, you feel lost. You you feel unseen, you feel lost, unheard, unthought of. And so what do you get? You get someone who is really sad, someone who probably is a hermit, doesn't know how to make friends, doesn't know how to connect, can't keep relationships, even romantic ones. Because in their minds, if our higher power can't love us, then who can? That means why should I love myself? Therefore, why should I trust anyone else to love me?
SPEAKER_01
Okay, I totally agree.
SPEAKER_00
Thanks.
SPEAKER_01
Yeah, exactly. And I mean it is such a kind of I'd say tender unraveling because you realize that the God you are we you were introduced to and the love that actually heals you might not be the same thing. And that the work is not about fixing yourself to deserve the love, but about letting love meet you exactly where you kind of have always been.
said. Let me tell you, may I share? May I share? So I left home. So if you read my profile, I left home at age 14. Yes, I still love my parents. I very much we have a good relationship today. But when I was this little child, yes, I was molested. So I was already displaying behaviors that were inappropriate for a little child. My parents didn't know what to do. They did the best that they could with what information that they had. But the reason I left is because I felt like my father could not love me. I was outed. I was outed by another parent at age almost going on 14. I was outed by this other parent. And my father was so ashamed, so embarrassed, so humiliated that his daughter could be born gay, that at age almost about, I think I had just turned 14. He's like, you know, you're a sickle lesbian, like you're sicko, you're sicko, you know, and a little child to hear that from somebody she looks up to, that's her dad. That's her daddy. That's dad, even though daddy, you know, would read some this little hard book to her, that's still her dad. Like I, you know, and the fact that my father had seen me, like, I tried, I almost died uh two weeks within within those two weeks. I attempted suicide twice, not telling anybody, almost dying because I I I really it was in my mindset to say, you know what, if my dad looks at me as such a sicko, and yeah, the only thing I need to do is not be in this earth and to leave, and to leave this earth and leave it quietly. So I consumed 70 pills at age 14 at 4 o'clock, told no one. 70. A bottle, brand new bottle of ibuprofen, chugging them down, and then another one of Tylenol, chugging them down, thinking this will end my life. Here comes eight o'clock. I take a shower, still tell no one, four o'clock I'd taken 70 pills. I'm in the bed by eight o'clock, showered, put on my page, put on my pajama, and I said, I'm never gonna have to wake up. Don't you do 11 o'clock comes around? I am green, literally the color crayon green. My whole skin is green. I'm I'm dying. And I'm starting to hurl all of this, you know, the medication, hurl it for the next 24 hours. I I couldn't even put a drop of water because I was so sick. I was taken to the hospital. Yeah, and I survived. Of course I did. Two weeks later, I attempted it with a gun. It didn't go off because I didn't know how to use it. I was trying everything to shoot myself and it wasn't going off. And then, of course, my sister opened the door, realized what was going on. My mother came in, said some really mean things, and then they called the the police, and I was taken away for a little bit to go get some mental health help. With that being said, I came back out of the hospital and then I packed my bags and I left. And my parents watched me walk out that door at age 14 and they asked me, Are you leaving? And I said, Yeah. I shook my head, like, yeah, I have to leave. They said, All right, go live life on life's terms. They shut their bedroom door and a little child went to go live life homeless, became a drug addict, major drug addict, erratic, angry, bitter, shameful. I couldn't keep friends, I couldn't keep relationships, you know, sexually assaulted so many times. Even in my book, I kept it as clean as I could. But the amount of trauma that I went through that I couldn't share so much of, because I would have traumatized people with the amount of trauma that I truly had, I had to clean my story up because I had hired a team to really help me write the story. And they're like, Fenex, your trauma is so heavy that we have to condense it. So the fact that they're telling me, even though we know your trauma is this big and you had so many rapes and assaults, and they're like, we're gonna have to condense it to this much because we don't want to traumatize your readers. So I even had to clean up my book as best as possible so that I can tell this story. And that was my life. That was my life. Because I became the sicko that my daddy had put upon me. He put the curse upon me. See, words, in my opinion, if we see we have power in the tongue to speak life and death. And my father was speaking death over me, a sicko death. You are a sicko child. You deserve all of the sickness that you're about to receive. And that's the curse that my father had put upon me. And I had to break that curse. Uh, 30, it took me from the age of 14 to the age of 35 was when I really started to heal. So it took me until 35 years old, and I'm 50 now, to truly begin to heal. Because that's how bad those many years, you know, 15 plus years of suffering and trauma and pain and shame and addiction that I lived, and how many times I should have been dead. And the fact that I'm not, and the fact that I look healthy, I'm really strong, I'm fit. It was only by the grace of God, because he's the one that kept coming after me when everyone else left me. He knew I was that let me I was that little one. See that he's holding a little sheep. He came to get me, and that's why I keep that with me all the time. He came to get me, that my his little sheep. He had to go to the mountain or wherever I was, as lost as I was, and he had to come get me and say no. I love you just the way you are. Let me show you my love. That is when I knew I needed to live. I needed to live for him because he was asking me to live.
unknown
Have he could that?
SPEAKER_00
That is when I could finally say, Okay, I'm ready to quit the help I need and and and release all of this pain.
SPEAKER_01
I totally can feel that. I do not want to share things today from my side. Yes, maybe maybe some other day I'll definitely share. Time is also the constraint, but I'll just say I'll just say you need, dear listeners, like you need to feel this because and also I'll just first of all I say like please don't take any decisions like this because taking your life is not the solution. It's just the beautiful gift that you have in in once in a lifetime. So just be who you are, love who you are, how you are, and it is your life, right? Don't think that what others are saying or if they will love me or not, how because somewhere or the other in this earth there is or there are people who will definitely gonna love you. So it is there. So don't think about that. And I'll just suggest that if you feel any kind of situations or this kind of situation comes to your life and you face this kind of situation and also think like, now what I'll do. I'm I'm I'm not so sure. Then please go visit someone whom you love the most who understand you, or at least talk to a consultant or the psychologists, but don't enter your life. That is not the solution.
not the solution. I today I I want to say that I'm so grateful I'm alive. I'm so grateful. I'm so grateful. I never thought I was gonna live past 40. The fact that I'm 50, healthy, happy, wholesome, healed because I never gave up on myself and continued on this journey of seeing psychologists, seeing therapists, doing workshops, doing a lot of modalities that I write in my book. I do a lot of hypnotherapy on myself, on myself. I do hypnotherapy on myself. I do neuroscientific techniques that release pain and anxiety or anything like that, always. And of course, number one, number my best one, prayer. I I I I make my walk-in closet. I I have like a beautiful mat and a lot of pillows, and I I'm always there worshiping, giving praise and and in in so much love and gratitude to God for the life that I have today. So, you know, if anyone is ever listening to this and you are feeling down, you know what? If you even have to reach out to me, phonexshepherd.com, please do, because I always give I I'm there for anybody. Like if you're like, hey, no, I I I need to talk, I'm always gonna jump on on the Zoom call because that means someone's in need and I'm gonna be there for them no matter what uh a peak. Exactly.
SPEAKER_01
That is really lovely. And thank you so much for being here, Finex. I mean, it's really great that you shared with people because there are a lot of people, even that is the main idea behind this podcast and our network is to reach out to those every people in small town or even very, very sm narrow areas where people are not getting to know. So at least to reach out to them so that they can get to hear a lot of beautiful stories, a lot of beautiful learnings from the life. It's a life lesson. So d so dear listeners, like I'll just say I I I've always said like please don't end your life. It is your kind of apprecious thing, and sometimes the most radical thing that we can do is stop trying to earn a love that was never ours to earn in the first place.
SPEAKER_00
That's right.
SPEAKER_01
Love is there. Love yourself. Yes love yourself, but it's a beautiful thing, right? So with this, this is your host, Avek, and this is Mind Meets Machine. I'll see you in the next one. Thank you so much.
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