Ashley Easter and the Courage 365 Revolution

Rich Bennett 0:00
Before we get into this conversation, I have to let all your listeners know. Since I started this back in 2000, 25, 2006, I can't remember now. I've the one neat thing about podcasting that I never knew would happen. I've met some wonderful people doing this. Two of them I have on today. Of course, the one, you know, Wendy Beck, who is my co-host and has I don't even know how many times she's co-hosted it now. Probably several. 

Ashley Easter 0:33
Dozen. 

Rich Bennett 0:34
But it's because of her that we're number one in the addiction category. The other young lady I met and had her on back in 2022, and this will be her fourth episode. And we just when we talked, it's just I don't know, like it's like she's as a younger, a much younger sister, I should say. So it's it's an honor to have Ashley Easter back on. And I'll put the links to the other episodes she's been on because we've covered we talked about her story in the first episode. I think we did a roundtable on dyslexia. We've also did a roundtable on mental health. And now today I'm finally we're me. Wendy, you're finally going to be able to talk to her about Courage 

365, which is a nonprofit that she started. Was it actually did you start it in 22 or was it 23 before that? 

Ashley Easter 1:33
Yeah. So we it's actually the nonprofit itself started in 2020, but we were actually a project under different nonprofit since 2016. So we've been around in different variations since 2016. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:51
Okay. So what actually has you and Wil started it, right? 

Ashley Easter 1:56
Yes, we. 

Rich Bennett 1:57
Do. Okay. So what inspired you to start it? 

Ashley Easter 2:01
Well, I know everybody's heard my story before, so I won't go into all the details, but I'll just give a quick recap, because that really was the motivation for starting courage. 365. I grew up in a very cultlike environment. If people are familiar with the Quiver full movement, some of the documentaries that most closely mirror My life is the Shiny Happy People documentary about the Duggars, and then also a documentary that just came out a couple months back. One of our board members from Marjorie, 65, is actually featured in it, but that was called Let US Pray, and that's about independent Fundamentalist Baptists. And so definitely experienced a variety of different types of abuse there, including spiritual abuse, but other forms as well. And I felt very much like this was my only community. I really didn't know hardly anybody outside of the community. And when I did it was mainly just in passing. And so when I was introduced to this concept of equality for women, which was not a concept in the cult, that kind of changed everything for me. I realized, Oh wow, I am an autonomous being. I am allowed to make my own decisions. I'm an adult and I need to stop letting these people in my life control me because I'm going to come to the end of my life and have lived for them and not have lived for myself. And so I started changing ideologically, but was still in the cult and people were not super happy that I was changing my mind on things like I didn't have a good exit plan. And I but one of the. 

Wendy Beck 3:59
Because I'm sorry, I don't want to interrupt, but was this something that was you were in from as a child? 

Ashley Easter 4:06
Yes, I was born into an in my parents grandparents on both sides were part of the Independent Fundamentalist Baptist Church. And homeschooling can be good. But for me, it was used as a tool of isolation and disinformation. But I also have I'm a third generation homeschoolers, so I was homeschooled, my mom was homeschooled, and one of my grandmothers was homeschooled for a bit. So yeah, it's very generational for us. Yeah. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 4:37
So I'm sorry. Go ahead, Ashley. 

Ashley Easter 4:40
Sure. So, yeah, I really didn't have a good exit plan because I didn't understand the world, but I did start being, quote unquote rebellious and sneaking out, going on dates, doing things like going to the movie theater, things that normal people just do in their everyday lives that felt very, you know, rebellious, strange for you, 

but pretty quickly. And I'm thankful for the time frame of this. I was introduced to my now husband while Easter and it was just a very powerful connection. Both of our intuition was like, this is the one that very quickly on. We dated for four months, we were engaged for four months and in October we will have been married for ten years. But as of the 11th, which was two days ago, we celebrated our first time meeting and that was a ten year thing. So we've been together for about ten years. 

Rich Bennett 5:49
Well, congratulations. 

Ashley Easter 5:51
Yeah, Thank you. Thank you. It's been the best decision I've ever made. He rescued me and gave me the safe place to grow and heal. And as I was in that healing process, I started talking about my story. And this is where courage comes in. So when I started talking about what had happened to me, I was having hundreds of survivors reach out in different forms, saying that they'd experience very similar things. A lot of times there was a cover up in a church or the abuse happened by somebody in the church, or people responded poorly to survivors. They were in often very religious families that were using religion to control and suppress. And I was like, Wow, okay, everybody that I talk to is saying that they feel so alone and isolated, but I know they're not because I'm having the same conversation with so many people. So it was another gut thing, another intuition thing. I was like, I need to start an event to get everybody in the same room. And that's really how what has become courage through 65 started. It was just once a year, a conference called The Courage Conference. I had no idea what I was doing. I was 24 putting on this conference that ended up having people drive in from all over the country to attend and then in later years fly in from other countries to attend. But I, I started this event alongside my husband and it was life changing not only for me but for the participants being in the same room with other people who got it. Because what other form of abuse somebody experiences? There's usually a stripping away of community you once thought you could trust. And for a lot of us that was our entire communities. And even if it's not a person's entire community and they do have some support of people, it usually shakes up their relationships and they realize that they have to reevaluate what's safe. Community looks like. So these conferences, we had professional speakers talking about mental health, talking about legal things, talking about survivor, those who had, you know, moved forward in their healing, were doing amazing things and the program was great. But I think the being together in that room, that was really the thing that I saw creating so much change was the community piece. Yeah, and I can go on with the rest of the story, but I didn't know if I need to pause for anything. If you had any questions at that point. 

Wendy Beck 8:41
Well, I can I can definitely ask some questions because I didn't I which sent me the link to the, to your organization, but I didn't really have a chance to, like, dive into it. What is your mission statement? 

Ashley Easter 8:56
Yeah. So our mission is to empower survivors of abuse through community education and by offering free mental health resources. So those are kind of the things that we focus on. A lot of our survivors have some sort of a faith element that was harmful in their experience, not all of them, but whether it was domestic violence or sexual abuse or a cult or, you know, some other type of abuse. A lot of them had a religious response to them that was not positive. And so that also causes people to question, maybe not even their immediate family and friends community, but their whole faith system, which often is very important to people. And so when you start to see through a facade of the group, you are a part of, that just brings people with a lot of questioning and wondering. And we just try to be a place where they can get education about understanding what happened to them. We can give them free mental health support resources, whether that's our support groups or our daily text message list or the resources they can download on our website. But most importantly, we offer a community for people to figure out what to do next and their healing. And that's sort of our mission and vision. We do it in a variety of ways, but that's what it really boils down to. 

Wendy Beck 10:31
Is there a safe component to I mean, I can imagine. I mean, like I can only imagine that people trying to break away from this type of thing might have unsafe, you know, families and stuff like that because they're trying to to change. Like you said, you were starting to rebel. And do you have any kind of I don't know whether it's workshops or safe houses or anything like that that help that help these individuals that are going through this. I'm just interested because this is not something that I really have much knowledge about at all. 

Ashley Easter 11:12
So we saw a gap in the care for survivors. There are organizations that exist and have for a long time doing important work of the actual rescuing and the actual safe houses in the midst of crisis. But where we saw the largest gap was like, once somebody is physically safe, it's not over. You still have all these mental health things coming up. You're trying to figure out how to acclimate to the world. As somebody who's just disclosed being a survivor or is just recognized for themself, they're a survivor. You've also often lost connection to family and you may not even understand what's happening to you or how to get help. So that's where we come in after someone is technically physically safe. In most cases we come in with here is something that you can do from the privacy of your own phone. Nobody has to know that you are receiving these resources. You can sign up for our daily text message lists, which we've had people respond and say that's actually saved their lives. You can do that without telling anybody else. It's just messages on your phone. 

Rich Bennett 12:27
To. 

Ashley Easter 12:28
Thank you. Thank you. You can access our prerecorded workshops and ebooks or get our how to find a therapist 

resource. You can do that from the privacy of your own home. You can reach out through the messages and I do my best response. You can get a personal connection there. And then even with our larger events that we do, like the 30 Days of Courage or our support groups, we do our best to provide a safe, enclosed space. So that happens. The large event where that's kind of our biggest program that we offer, people can either create a fake profile to join if they need to be that quiet somehow participating, they can join the group. And you know, we're we're private groups, so people cannot see what you post in there. You can reach out to people personally from our board asking for resources. And so what we've tried to do is realize that a lot of services being offered are physical services where you have to go place in person, and that is such a boundary to so many people. I mean, with COVID, it showed us that people weren't always able to get out to receive those in-person services. But it also highlighted how people, even before COVID, had been trapped in situations where it was very hard for them to reach resources. So, for instance, maybe somebody has a full time job and they have to care for their children afterwards. When are they going to find time to go to a resource center to get help? They can't go after the kids have gone to sleep, you know, but they could pull up their phone and access the free resources there instantly, immediately and on demand. What if somebody has a chronic illness, which many, many abuse survivors have chronic illnesses due to the trauma and they can't leave their house? Or what if a physical service isn't even present in their area? There are some people in very small towns or rural areas with they have to travel far to receive services. And so what we do is provide private services that people can access on their phone and trying to fill in that gap of there are so many people who can't go someplace in person. In addition to that, I think we offer something different than what most organizations are offering. Yeah. 

Wendy Beck 15:12
How many members do you know and what's the percent and what's that like? The percentage of people that are experiencing this kind of trauma or I mean, is it 

happening all over the place all the time? Like I know, I know. Like now they have more documentaries on stuff like this, but like, what are what are the numbers? I mean, I don't know if you know that off the top of your head, but I'm just curious because it would probably be, I would think, like isolated areas because you would have this church or this religion or this, and you'd have like a group of people here and and they probably don't co-mingle at all. 

Ashley Easter 15:57
So it's actually extremely common. It's not just in small towns. A lot of times people can be in small towns when they need help and support. And so we want to serve those people. But it happens in major cities. That could be the church down the road from you. Honestly. And it can be perceived from the outside as something that's very welcoming and it can be something like one of the mega churches in the town I grew up in. They would say that they would support survivors. They would say that. But I have worked personally with survivors. I went to court with one the other week who pastors from the church came to show up in support of her abuser. And this is a megachurch very mainstream Southern Baptist. And so even if it's not a cult, there can be these terrible practices happening in churches. And so it's everywhere. We have very vague numbers on abuse. They say broadly one in three women, one in six men, But the breakdown of the different types of abuse, particularly things that have some sort of a religious component to it, there are no stats on that because how do you track that? How do you even track that? I mean, the U.S. is so religious. It's not just Christian religion. You know, there's all kinds of religion. And any group can devolve into a high control group or any group can have leadership that mis handles abuse or abuses people directly. And so I would say the number is extremely high. We've seen just with like the Southern Baptist Church, you know, hundreds and hundreds of cases documented representing different churches. 

But that's just the tip of the iceberg. You know, people don't always talk about this. People don't always have language for this. And that's really what we try to do. Encourage is not only create that community, but give people that education so they can understand what happened to them. Yeah, so many people are like, this was wrong, but I don't know what to call this, you know, because I went to my pastor and said, I'm in a domestic violence situation. And he said, you just need to submit more. And so they don't know what to call the it necessarily. And so we help people understand the different terms and definitions of these different types of abuses and controls. And I think we're really kind of on the forefront of that. You know, I don't know of another organization offering the type of help we offer in an online on demand type of service. 

Rich Bennett 18:56
Yeah. The other thing is that you look at all the different types of religions in the area. I mean, you talk about Southern Baptists, but look at Scientology. 

Ashley Easter 19:05
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 19:05
All the abuse that's going on there as well. 

Ashley Easter 19:08
And it's. 

Rich Bennett 19:09
It's crazy. The good thing is with what you're doing, you're getting more and more people that are talking about it. 

Ashley Easter 19:16
Right. Right. 

Rich Bennett 19:17
Which well, that takes courage, you know, And people are seeing the other people talking about and then realize and I need to come forward as well. Yeah. And that's where you're making a big difference. 

Ashley Easter 19:31
Right? Right. And there is I don't know the exact statistic, but there's a roundabout statistic about how people who have been sexually abused as children often do not disclose that abuse until they're in their fifties. And that has been very, very common because of the shame, because of the culture, and I think because of the lack of education and community. What we're seeing in our community is younger and younger people being able to come to grips with what happened to them and even talk about it in a way that maybe they wouldn't have felt like they could before, because we offer them this community of people who got it and because we're giving language and education to what happened. 

I feel like there are so many organizations doing good work, but they're not taking advantage of the power of the Internet. I would not have left a cult if I did not have the opportunity to research about equality for women. If I did not have the opportunity to research about the group that I was in from, you know, people who had left, if I had not had my computer, I would still be in that space. If I had not had my phone, I would still be in that space. And so we are offering people this is something that you can put in your hands. We have so many resource. There's so many people you can reach out to 

365 offering, whether it's our Facebook group or our text messages or our events. 

People can access that and begin to disclose and start dealing with the abuse and the mental health issues that come up much sooner than 50 years of age. 

Rich Bennett 21:18
You you have I think you started this maybe last year, the Courage Club Courage clubs. Yeah. How many how many of those do you have now? And can you explain some of the different ones? 

Ashley Easter 21:32
Sure. That's a great question. Last year we had five courage clubs and they were for domestic violence survivors, general survivors, male survivors, LGBTQ plus survivors and spouses of survivors. This year we have not relaunched our groups yet. It's a six month program with a curriculum that people go through. However, some of the groups that were happening before are continuing to happen, like they've gone beyond the months. And so we are going to be launching that this spring, probably April or May. And will be giving people details about the different types of groups that they can sign up for. But we found that that's a way for people to have even more intimate connections with other survivors through the format of Zoom. And they can show their face or they don't have to. They can put their real name or they don't have to. They just have to communicate with a facilitator that their real person, of course, she was in need of the services, but other than that, you know, people can do it privately while still making connections and were ready to show their face or show their name, those sorts of things. Yeah, Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 22:58
The other thing that you do, which I love, which is how I found out about you, is the videos. The was the courage is just the. 

Ashley Easter 23:08
Courage, conversations. 

Rich Bennett 23:10
Courage, conversations because you just did what season four. 

Ashley Easter 23:14
Yes. Right. So, yes, you're right. We have backup episodes of season four on our website and on YouTube that people can watch on demand with so many different experts, whether it's on different tips for healing, different perspectives on mental health 

survivors, sharing tools that have been useful to them, educational resources, they're all super, super good. And this year, what we're doing, we are creating a special project that is in the works. This is actually going to be one for advocates to help raise up more leaders, to help survivors. But while we are producing this program and creating it, which it will be launching soon, we are actually partnering with a much larger podcast, and that's called the Preacher Boys Podcast. They talk about abuse in independent fundamentalist. Christian Yeah, and so we are being featured on episodes there, and so it's been great to be able to kind of reach a new audience while we're working on something behind the scenes because we didn't have time to do both. We're a small team, but yeah, really excited about expanding the reach there and bringing more people into the services that we have for free. Yeah, Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 24:40
Okay. So Ashley and 

if you don't have to answer this, this is okay. 

Ashley Easter 24:48
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 24:50
Okay. So as you know, I've been doing this for a long time and I think when I first talked to you, I mean, you had me in tears, not of laughter, crying, and I just. I was ready to open up a candle, pass on somebody. 

Ashley Easter 25:05
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 25:06
Wendy, when I heard Wendy story, same way, I just she brought me to tears with courage conversations. And he gets it. You've had on where you were just you heard their story and it just literally brought you to tears. And if so, can you share one? 

Ashley Easter 25:24
Yeah, 

I that's a very interesting question. And it's a good one because 

I can talk about meaningful stories that I've heard. I don't generally cry in the places where a lot of people cry. My husband is the one who cries that normal things like funerals and sad movies, I'm the one who cries when I'm scared or angry. I don't cry typically when I'm sad and sometimes I do. But not not the same way. I think it's maybe a coping mechanism that I learned, but there have been some very, very meaningful stories that have come up. And one of the stories I don't think it was on Courage Conversations, I think this was before, but she was a speaker at one of our events. Her name was Natalie, and she had experienced child sexual abuse by a seminary student who attended her church. And I believe she's about 14 and it was one of the most moving and emotional stories because of the backlash from the church, how huge it was, not only did they shame her, blame her, try to say it was her fault or hey, she looks more mature for her age, all those things. But years later, when she's trying to live her life with her husband, with her kids, they are still harassing her and sending people to harass her. And she sometimes seemed afraid for her life and to hear that story that not only did this thing happen to her and it was responded to poorly in the moment, but even years later, when you would think you would think that an abuse story would jar people into attention to be like, oh, we didn't handle this right in our community. Let's get it. It was the exact opposite of it. It was just this vitriol that she faced and her strength in the midst of that really was moving to me. 

And on the Courage Conversation show, we have talked less about survivor stories. We've given like a synopsis, but mainly mainly focused on healing just to try to prevent trigger feelings. And we will bring people who have had powerful stories in the past. But our focus on the show has mainly been how did they move from a place where they were completely overwhelmed by grief, anxiety, depression? How did they find their way to a place where they are happy and feeling healthy and fulfilled? And what is that path to get there? And so that's mainly what we focused on in that show. But there's been so many stories that I've heard over and over again 

and yeah, yeah, from people sending death threats to survivors, to 

them just being ridiculed in the media. It's 

it's very hard to listen to because you feel a sense of kinship as a fellow survivor. 

But at the same time, a lot of these survivors that I've known that have gone through these terrible things, their resilience has been incredible. They should not have had to be strong. They should not have had to be resilient. Right. None of this should have happened. But it did happen. And to see just this 

strength of human spirit and the way they often turn around and help other people, it's it's truly, truly moving. And I think some of the most effective advocacy comes from people who have a deep connection to the cause and also have a way to project their story and their voice to the world. And we have tried to create platforms to do that. 

Rich Bennett 29:51
So with courage 365 and correct me if I'm wrong, it is a nonprofit and I figure three. So this is something that a lot of nonprofits struggle with. What is one or one or some of the biggest things that you guys do to actually raise funds for courage. 365. 

Ashley Easter 30:15
You know that is always the hardest thing for nonprofits and it's hard for us right now. So there's a couple of things that we have in the works. One is we are going to be launching a course that is going to be incredibly valuable. We have eight different coaches who are advocates, who have massive platforms or have done huge amounts of advocacy work and are coming together. And we are creating a program specifically for people who want to be an advocate for their cause, whether it is abuse or another type of cause. And so we're going to be selling a course in the next couple months that will be insanely valuable for the price that we're offering, but will also help us then be able to use the funds from that to help our survivor community. So we're simultaneously building up leaders by helping them create a platform and helping our community with that. We're also applying for grants that that was one of the reasons I was a little bit late to our call today as I was working on filling out a grant proposal. And then we have always have room for people to get generous gifts. We are in a tough spot right now, honestly, with our finances. It's one of those things where 

our bank account is very low. We operate on a shoestring budget. Your dollar probably stretches $5 when we use it because we have so many volunteers. But that being said, you know, there's some costs that come with a nonprofit and we want to continue offering these services and we can't, you know, just keep asking our survivor community because we know so many of them have already spent so much money on their own therapy or on medical bills or whatever it is. And so we really are trying to reach out to people who are either further along in their healing or are at a place where maybe they have somebody in their life who's gone through abuse or touched by the stories of abuse and has some money to donate. We need to raise about 30, $35,000 this year to be able to cover our operating expenses, which in the grand scheme of things, most nonprofits have like 300 or $500,000 budgets. But those are the calls that we're getting. I think we are going to have a special donor event, but I can't say too much about it. But certainly if people want us to be able to continue to offer this 365 support, we have to have backers. 

Wendy Beck 33:03
Where are you look, where are you located? And is it a national type of situation where I know it's it's a lot of virtual stuff. So you can you know, you can easily text and stuff from anywhere. But what you have when you have like in-person events, where where do you have them? 

Ashley Easter 33:23
So we haven't had an in-person event since COVID. We've switched completely online because we found that we could reach so many more people that way and we could use the money more effectively. So, for instance, an in-person event may cost $35,000 to put on, or we could use $35,000 and reach, you know, thousands of survivors versus just, you know, 100 or 150 over a couple of days. You know, So we are not doing in-person events right now. Our focus is national and sometimes international. We have partnered with some local organizations, like for this Christmas, we sent out gifts that were self-care gifts to our Survivor community online and then also some local survivors, people who had been disconnected from their family and community and were overlooked and 

not being seen during the holiday season. So we had local partnerships in different places, but our work is national and online. 

Rich Bennett 34:35
They're actually located down the road from us Day where. 

Ashley Easter 34:39
I live in. 

Wendy Beck 34:42
I miss that. When you say. 

Ashley Easter 34:44
You, I do live in Winston-Salem, but yeah, our services are not. 

Wendy Beck 34:47
Okay. Okay. I was just curious about that. 

Rich Bennett 34:52
So actually very important. How can people donate? 

Ashley Easter 34:56
So if people want to donate, they can go to our website Courage. 365 dot org and there's a donate tab that you can find easily on the home page if you scroll down a little bit or if you are desktop, you can see it on the menu bar or if you're on a phone you can click those like three bars and it drops down to a donation thing. But yeah, you can give a one time gift or a reoccurring gift. Those reoccurring gifts can be super helpful because that helps people to count on and, you know, consistent to continue providing support. But we're definitely not going to turn down a one time gift. Right. 

Rich Bennett 35:40
So so what are your future goals for courage? 365 So donations come in to keep you guys. 

Ashley Easter 35:48
Right? Yeah. So kind of picking back up with a story I left off when we started the Courage conference, it then eventually morphed into courage. 365 or what? Launching and offering things all online and we'd like to be able to expand that. We'd like to be able to expand our support groups, but that costs time and money. We would love to be able to offer more events for free for survivors that are online with professionals who can help and support them in their healing journey, giving them tangible tools. We'd love to be able to create more things like we have some great resources already, like our how to find a Therapist resource is incredible. It can teach you how to find fair therapy for free or for cheap, and it gives you this checklist of what to ask for. Talk to you about the different types of therapies that are available because so many people don't know. And so we'd love to create more resources like that. We would love to be able to create courses that survivors could go through that they didn't have to pay for because they're funded by other people outside. So there are so many things that we could offer in a minute if we had the tech to do it. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 37:10
And correct me if I'm wrong, but because I know a lot of listeners may be thinking, okay, well, these are strictly survivors of, you know, the religious groups. 

Ashley Easter 37:22
Right? 

Rich Bennett 37:23
But it's not right. 

Ashley Easter 37:24
Correct. Correct. So a lot of our survivors have been attracted to the organization because I've told my story, and that's an element in my story. And so we do have specific conversations about that. But it is not just religious abuse survivors. It can be someone who experienced abuse in any type of environment or relationship or family unit, and all of the resources are going to be transferable to their situations as well. And so we do talk about that element that is often not talked about that religious portion, but that's only because most of the United States is religious. And so people aren't generally talking about that. But whether someone had a religious element to their abuse or not, our services are there to support them, educate them, create safe community, and they'll be just as valuable. However you identify. 

Wendy Beck 38:31
Is there a lot of backlash when they reach out for support and their community finds out? I mean, do they do they tend to, you know, continue their healing or do they revert back to because there's that's their safe space? Do you have any kind of like input on that? Because I think it's I mean, I think it's really interesting to kind of like walk through the journey of someone that's going through that healing phase, because I imagine that there's a lot of fear. I would imagine that, you know, when you are put into an environment where it's your family and you're supposed to trust your you know, your your elders or your leaders in your community that are your church, How do how do they escape that? Like I mean, I don't know. I know you said in the beginning that that, you know, we're more rebellious and then you met someone and then it gave you the courage to do that. But how how successful is that for for people to get to the others? 

Ashley Easter 39:35
We have found that our community has been highly successful because when you can get into a space, whether it is virtual or in person, where you're starting to hear people talk about very similar experiences to yours, you're able to get out of your head and thinking that this is just something that happened to you. Maybe you're misreading it, maybe you deserve this and you're able to see a little bit more objectively that, oh, somebody else went through this and it wasn't okay for them to go through it. So it's not okay for me, too. So we've actually found that when people find us a more supportive community quickly, they are less likely to go back into those environments. Yes, the backlash can be strong. I have and continue to have a strong backlash to speaking about what happened to me. And not every survivor decides to talk publicly about what they've experienced. That's not always the right path for them, but certainly we hear on a regular basis how families and communities have either shunned or treated them differently for putting themselves first and their healing. But then I've seen those same people who are going through that reach out to our community, reach out for personal support in the text messages, or attend one of our live events, or connects in our support groups and be able to talk about that and brainstorm like, how could I create safe boundaries for myself? How can I address the situation and what have other people done? We actually have this resource called What I Wish I Knew Before I Left, and it is a compilation of advice from our Survivor community, people who have left. And you can give that to someone who's just recently leaving a toxic environment or just coming to grips with their abuse and see all the things people wish they had known that they've learned along their healing journey. But it would have been so much easier if it was distilled quickly in the beginning and we provide both the education and the communities, help people realize they don't have to continue experiencing these things 

if they reach out for help and support. 

Wendy Beck 41:53
So what would say? Well, let's just say like we have a listener here too, you know, that's listening to this podcast and they don't know where to start. Like, what would be the what what is step one? You know, like, like, I know like with addiction, you know, obviously we need to get them into treatment and detox and that kind of stuff. But like, what's step one for someone who is experiencing this type of abuse and they have no idea where to turn. 

Ashley Easter 42:21
So two things and they're kind of branches of the same thing, I guess. But, you know, supportive, supportive people. And so I recommend that this is twofold, that there is professional services and they can use our how to find a therapist resource for that. And then there is peer support. So that would be either our Facebook group that's very active or our support groups that are very active. But being able to connect with other people who can give you options because so many times when we're trapped in these environments or when we've just left an environment, we sort of have tunnel vision because we've only been seeing the world one way because of the abuser being so overbearing in our life. And so when we can connect with a therapist, when we connect with another survivor or advocate who's gone through similar things and they can not only empathize but then help you understand what happened and that's really where you're able to start taking your power back. You know, education is power. So understanding what happened is powerful and. 

Wendy Beck 43:36
Being able to do it discreetly. I like that because, you know, you're not like going, okay, well, I'm going to go out tonight and I'm just going to, you know, tell my my abuser or my husband or my what who member of my family that I'm going to go to the store and then you're going to like a group. So you everything is very private on your phone. 

Ashley Easter 43:56
Yes. 

Wendy Beck 43:57
With with that. Is there any 

safeguards that you like? Are there are there code words or there's something like that? If this person is reaching out to her 365 and they're found out because I imagine it can be a very like intense situation. If you're in a situation where you can't just live like like you or I would today, do you have any kind of like safe words or any kind of strategies for your participants that you know, that there's they're in trouble or that I don't know it's going in in a way that they need help? Is there anything like that? 

Ashley Easter 44:39
So most of our work is supporting people after they have left in the what's next. So that's the edge and that's the community but that does happen sometimes because it's not always black and white of like, you know, you like for me I had left ideology actually, but I was still living in the cold. You know, those two things can be different. It wasn't until I had the physical escape with my husband. So there's a lot of nuance to that. But yes, if people reach out to our board members, we do have resources we can connect them to locally. We understand how to, you know, bring it to the attention of the police. If, you know, if we have the information to do so 

and we're able to, you know, talk with people individually, if that's, you know, something that they need or the through messaging or texts or those sorts of things, because I've definitely had people reach out with that and then we're able to refer them to the service that they need. But courage fills that gap for the what's next. Because so many organizations, do you feel the role of the actual escape? But it's it's very difficult to escape but then have nothing and have to rebuild your life from scratch and not have support of community or mental health services to help you keep going, because that part can sometimes be just as bad or worse than the actual scenario is the PTSD that comes after. And so that's where really where our focus is, is filling that gap of how do we get a person from I've escaped to I feel healthy and I'm healing and I'm empowered to self-actualize and take control over my life back. 

Wendy Beck 46:40
Okay. Yeah, that's that's, that's very interesting because I feel I mean, I didn't even know, like, a lot of this was I mean, you you know, that it's happening, but you don't know at what scale it's happening. 

Ashley Easter 46:54
For sure. 

Rich Bennett 46:56
So Ashley, especially with cursory 65 being virtual, which means you're nationwide in national. 

And when it comes to abuse, you know, when you dive deep into somebody, you know, whether they're going through anxiety, depression, even addiction, a lot of times it comes back to where they were abused. Do you work with any other organizations, too, where you 

let's say, you know, they they escaped and 

they're on the path to I don't know, for some reason, recovery is just coming to my head. It is. 

Ashley Easter 47:42
Healing. 

Rich Bennett 47:43
Yeah. All right. Well, yeah, but do you work with those groups? And especially if you also being now a ted X talker, 

do you you know, you've done a lot of talking. Do you work with any other groups to talk to the people that are having problems? 

Ashley Easter 48:03
I think I'm a little bit confused. I feel like you asked a couple questions and I'm not sure where you. 

Rich Bennett 48:08
Ask that may have. 

Ashley Easter 48:10
Partner with other organizations. Is that the question? 

Rich Bennett 48:13
Yeah. Yeah. Basically the law. Yeah. Do you actually partner with any other organizations, especially since you're, let's say, international? 

Ashley Easter 48:21
Sure. Yeah. So we have different relationships with other organizations. We have a long resource list of organizations that we recommend if there's something that we don't offer. So we're not going to try to be everything. You know, there are different people who specialize in different things. And so on our website we have an extensive resource list of how we can refer people out for specific things that they may need. But in addition to that, we have partnered with an organization called She Learns, which helps empower girls who've experienced domestic violence in Uganda. We have recently worked with some of the local Winston-Salem shelters, providing tools and resources to their community there because they are, you know, on the front lines of the escapes or the shelter type things. And we've kind of offering like, here's some self-care and here's some next steps now that you're, you know, physically safe and yeah, you know, I've I don't know if you're familiar with Dr. Deborah Warner, but, you know, I've spoken at her events. She focuses mainly on male survivors. And so we do our best to connect with organizations as best as possible. For years, I worked with SNAP Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. And so we have a lot of connections and relationships with other organizations. So if somebody reaches out to us and it's beyond the scope of what we offer, we know who to refer them to and we're able to make those connections when needed 

because everybody's, you know, journey is different and. 

Rich Bennett 50:13
Right. 

Ashley Easter 50:14
When, you know, the tide rises, all boats rise. And so we were working, you know, as a collective, a constellation of groups to help survivors. And yeah, I'm a big fan of collaboration for sure. Good. 

Rich Bennett 50:31
Good. Wendy unless you have any other questions, I only have one. 

Ashley Easter 50:36
More. 

Wendy Beck 50:38
Adult at the moment, but I'm sure. 

Rich Bennett 50:41
I know you'll have it. You'll have it till. 

Ashley Easter 50:42
After we finish. 

Wendy Beck 50:43
Yeah. I'm going to be thinking about this, and I'll definitely check out the website, you know. 

Rich Bennett 50:49
Oh, sure. I'll send you the link to the first episode, too, because, well, we have time to listen to it and you have some Kleenex. 

Wendy Beck 50:57
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 50:59
The first episode I did have, Ashley, because you'll be floored. 

Wendy Beck 51:02
Yeah, I'm sure. 

Rich Bennett 51:04
Oh, yeah, absolutely. So, Ashley, is there anything else you would like to add before we wrap this up? 

Ashley Easter 51:12
I would love to add that 

I have found myself and I've talked to so many other survivors who've been in a place where they have felt like they're totally isolated and this doesn't even mean physically isolated. Sometimes you feel so disconnected from the world due to the way trauma is interacting with your brain. You can tend to 

personalize things and it can be very difficult to try to find a connection that feels safe to kind of re-engage with your life 

and that's something we offer at Courage 365 as a community where you can begin to engage with a safe community, begin to 

acclimate yourself to the world in a new way, because it never looks the same after you've experienced abuse. But there is a way that you can reactivate and put your life into your own hands and we offer the community the education and the tools to help you do that. And so please don't feel like you have to suffer and isolation. Reach out to us. Sign up for text messages, download our free resources to reach out to us in a message. Whatever it is, we want to support you and we have the tools to help you, 

help you grow and heal. 

Rich Bennett 52:58
All right, so your text messages, which are awesome, by the way, 

Mandy, was it Mandy Valdez? 

Ashley Easter 53:06
Yeah, Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 53:08
Okay. Is that is that the podcast or No. 

Ashley Easter 53:12
Okay. No, she's a survivor that I helped several years ago. She's been public about this. I'm not speaking out of turn, but she was in a child marriage in a cult and she escaped. So I helped give her some resources. 

Ultimately, you know, I believe survivors create their own, you know, strength and make their own decisions. But, yes, I, I offered some support there. And now, years later, she's in such a better place. And now she's getting back to our text community by participating, by sending out some of our daily text messages for this month. And that's really how the text messages work. We have different survivors from our community who are further along in their healing, who come together to create empowering messages that we send out Monday through Friday for free for people. And yes, if you respond, we do our best to respond back. I'm the person who responds, not just some random person, but we've seen this be one of our most connective resources and we just get so much positive feedback from what it's like to be remembered every day. Empowered. Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 54:30
Yeah. When you're probably looking at me like, Why did you bring up Mandy? I just did this. 

Wendy Beck 54:36
You get the text, you get the text messages. 

Rich Bennett 54:40
Oh, yes, yes. And they are so they just make you feel good. Like the woman from Mandy this week was. I'm so proud of you. It's like that's just something that people love to hear. 

Ashley Easter 54:54
Yeah, And sometimes they don't hear it. 

Rich Bennett 54:56
Yeah, Yeah, true, true. But yeah. So those of you listening definitely sign up for the text messages because, you know, and I've always said this, you could be having the worst day of your life and you just get that one little message and it could, it could change your life. 

Ashley Easter 55:15
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 55:16
You could definitely change your life. 

Ashley Easter 55:18
So you definitely receive feedback like that from, from our community that it came at the right time. It's just what they needed. And that they've decided to continue living because of the text messages. So it's our honor to offer them they're free and to sign up. All you have to do is if you're in the U.S. or Canada, you can text the word courage to 

9178097311 and you'll be added to the list. It's a monday through Friday thing. And yeah, we don't spam you with stuff, just messages. And on occasion we'll let you know if we have a new resource available. 

Rich Bennett 55:58
Yeah, they're they're great. One of the greatest things that I look well I look forward to it. Yeah. All the time. 

Ashley Easter 56:07
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 56:08
And as we're talking I see this message came come up and it was one of the texts. I'm like. 

Ashley Easter 56:13
What is today's message today? 

Rich Bennett 56:15
Well, two already came across. 

Ashley Easter 56:18
From one of my intuition texts. 

Rich Bennett 56:21
Okay, Brave doesn't always feel powerful. Rebuilding a life from scratch is terrifying. But dear one, I celebrate you today for breathing. And that was Mandy. 

Ashley Easter 56:35
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 56:36
Yeah, I just. 

Yeah, they're very good. Very good. So, Ashley, I want to thank you so much. Wendy. I want to thank you. 

Wendy Beck 56:47
Yes. And I want to say from from founder to founder, I appreciate the work that you do because when we can turn our purpose or turn our pain into purpose, it changes our life and it changes the lives of others. And it's like people like you that are doing the hard stuff every day. And, you know, when you have to relive what you've gone through, I do feel that that is the the key to healing. 

Rich Bennett 57:17
Yeah, definitely. Thank you. And for everything you're doing, both of you actually. And I have a funny feeling we're all up. The three of us are going to be talking again in the future. 

Ashley Easter 57:29
I think I to you I do that with you. 

Wendy Beck 57:32
Is a pleasure to see you again. 

Ashley Easter 57:34
Thank you so much. I really appreciate the opportunity. I always love being on your show. All right. And yeah, thank you so much, everybody, for listening.