Samantha Sellers
137 episodes listed below
Faith loss, named with care.
Beyond The Surface holds slow, emotionally precise conversations about what faith can do to identity, belonging, and the body. Its center is not tidy recovery, but the difficult work of naming control, grief, shame, and freedom.
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Beyond The Surface is a measured, intimate show about faith, power, identity, and recovery after high-control religion. It is tender, but not soft-edged. The conversations make room for religious trauma, abuse, cult dynamics, queerness, spiritual confusion, and the ordinary ache of losing a whole community at once. Rather than offering quick healing language, the show lingers with what leaving can actually feel like: disorienting, lonely, clarifying, enraging, and sometimes quietly freeing. Sam often begins from a concrete place, a holiday, a story, a question, or a cultural text, then follows it toward the deeper pattern underneath. Easter becomes a conversation about how belief can get inside someone and shape self-understanding. Wicked becomes a way to talk about performance, moral injury, conditioned loyalty, and the grief of realizing the system was wrong. A conversation about spirituality and embodiment asks a difficult question: when people leave religion, how do they recognize nourishment without recreating the same control in another form? Interviews with guests such as Andrew, Naomi, Tristan, and Elise keep the show grounded in lived experience. The effect is less lecture than shared witnessing. There is humor at the edges. There is anger too. But the anger usually serves the same purpose as the tenderness: to name what was minimized, excused, or made sacred by the communities people left. Beyond The Surface is especially attentive to the gap between outward freedom and inner conditioning. It understands that leaving a church, movement, or fundamentalist world does not automatically restore discernment, safety, or self-trust. The show also makes space for queer listeners whose faith histories were tangled with shame, silence, and belonging that came with conditions. Its best episodes do not reduce survivors to damage. They trace how people keep making meaning after inherited certainty collapses. The result is patient, relational, and often bracingly specific.
Made for: For listeners processing religious trauma, deconstruction, queer faith histories, or the loss of community after leaving high-control religion. It also suits people who want survivor-centered conversations without neat recovery formulas.
What sets it apart: Beyond The Surface connects personal story, cultural analysis, and trauma-informed reflection without flattening the emotional complexity of leaving. It treats anger, grief, embodiment, and belonging as intertwined parts of the same recovery work.
Welcome to Beyond the Surface, where being seen means being understood. Here, we explore the ups and downs of exploring and sometimes losing faith and community, and the healing power of shared stories. This is a safe space to connect, share, and find support in our common experiences of religious trauma and leaving fundamental communities. Join us as we build a community of understanding and connection. Host - Sam Sellers; Therapist specialising in Religious Trauma and the Queer Community Links: Website - www.anchoredcounsellingservices.com.au Facebook - www.facebook.com/anchoredcounsellingservices Instagram - www.instagram.com/anchoredcounsellingservices Monthly Newsletter...
Based on 4 episodes we listened to · September 2026
Sam Sellers connects religious deconstruction to identity, relationships and recovery, making the lingering effects of high-control faith easier to recognize.
Beyond The Surface follows what happens after a high-control faith stops supplying the answers. Sam Sellers moves between personal testimony, reflective solo commentary and guest conversations, keeping attention on how belief systems shape identity, belonging and recovery.
Glinda's glitter becomes a mirror for leaving church, if you like your deconstruction emotionally exact.
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Short reviews from the PlayNext desk, based on the episodes we processed.
A sharp, tender Wicked reading about survival, shame, belonging, and the grief of awakening.
This review treats Wicked as a study in identity, power, and the cost of surviving inside a system that rewards obedience. It works best when it moves past plot mechanics and stays with the moral and emotional damage, especially the awakening that changes not just belief but…
An honest look at how healing spaces can still hide familiar control.
This sits in the uneasy space between spirituality, embodiment, and old control patterns. It is strongest when it asks what discernment looks like after religion has narrowed it, and when it catches how easy it is to mistake community, beauty, or a good vibe for safety.
A close look at how belonging can become conditional inside evangelical life.
This conversation looks at how evangelical faith can turn transactional, with safety, belonging, acceptance, and love made to feel conditional on performance.
A thoughtful, unsentimental look at monogamy, possessiveness, and the work of relating well.
This bonus conversation treats monogamy as something to question rather than defend, and it does so with a calm, educational tone. It moves through jealousy, possessiveness, boundary-setting, and mixed relationship structures, while insisting that everyone involved has thoughts,…
Beyond the Surface host Sam interviews Sammy about leaving Islam after years of navigating religious expectations, cultural identity, and gendered restrictions.
"What we did is the Mount Everest of church leaving. Don't underestimate how extraordinary it is that you got out."
This episode explores the intersection of queerness, religious trauma, and personal recovery within contexts like Hillsong, grounded in lived experiences and respect for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures.
This episode features a casual conversation with Elise Hurd about the complex and often damaging emotional impacts of Easter, focusing on validation rather than coping strategies.
This episode explores the journey from obedience to autonomy for those impacted by fundamental religion or high control systems, focusing on religious trauma, recovery, and rebuilding meaning through honest conversation.
This episode explores personal experiences of leaving fundamentalist religious groups, focusing on recovery from religious trauma and cult dynamics through vulnerable conversation.
The episode opens with a land acknowledgement and a reminder that the show lives at the edges of faith, identity, power, and recovery.
The episode lives at the edges of faith, identity, power, and recovery, especially for people shaped or harmed by fundamental religion or high control systems.
This episode explores the personal and emotional challenges of leaving fundamentalist faith communities, focusing on the sudden loss of community and the process of rebuilding identity and meaning.
The episode opens with a land acknowledgment and a warning that the conversation will move through religious trauma, abuse, cult dynamics, queerness, and recovery.
This episode features an interview with Cheryl, a cult survivor who shares her experiences with religious trauma, high control communities, and deconstructing her faith, including heavy topics like child sexual abuse and suicidality.
This episode features an interview with Josie, a member of The Collective's advisory committee, exploring her experiences with religious trauma and leaving high-control communities as part of a podcast about faith deconstruction and survivor stories.
This episode features an interview with AJ, who shares their personal journey from Mormonism to polyamory, exploring themes of religious trauma, leaving high-control communities, and deconstructing faith.
Sam opens a bonus session of Beyond the Surface with a land acknowledgement and the show’s emphasis on expert conversations about religious trauma, cults, and deconstruction.