Things I learned from being a scientologist

(No, that’s not a typo for “scientist”)

Disclaimer: I’m not a Church of Scientology member (there is plenty of information to be found on the internet if you look up “independent” or “freezone” in this context); this post is neither an endorsement nor criticism of the Church of Scientology and is not really about scientology at all; I never considered scientology to be my religion, specifically; and I will answer any questions if you have them.

In a recent conversation with a person who (a) I would trust with my life and (b) is no stranger to internet hate, I voiced what I considered a potentially pathological desire to be open on the internet about the one thing I believed people might hate me for.

“That depends on what it is,” she said.

“I practiced scientology for over a decade,” I told her.

“Expose it,” was her response, delivered with a wry smile that indicated you’re probably not going to like this, but you won’t regret doing it.

I didn’t ask her to elaborate. I didn’t need to—knowing what I know about her and her experiences with the internet, the immediate and definitive response was enough. The conversation came about because we’d been discussing in a wider group about how potentially misaligned beliefs hold us back from going after things we want in life. We often have things that keep us slightly behind where we need to be to get to wherever we want to go because of the fear of what might happen if we reveal them or allow them to just be.

Now, I don’t entirely believe in showing up authentically everywhere all the time. I’ve written about this before—or, at least, spoken about it in videos—and my position on that hasn’t changed. We all have parts of ourselves that we ‘should’ (I hate that word) want to keep separate from our professional lives, our online personas, and our relationships to some extent. However, authenticity overall is an empowering characteristic to embrace, and continuing to conceal this aspect of my past is misaligned with the core values that underlie everything I do. My training as a scientist (not scientologist) makes it almost physically painful to talk about things without citing my sources or at least backing up what I say with real-life evidence. When one of my core values is facilitating connection through communication about life experiences and what I have (or haven’t) learned from them, it feels disingenuous to omit why I was in a position to experience them in the first place.

So, why would I want to tell the internet I was a scientologist? One aspect that’s valuable to me (but admittedly not to anyone else) is to control the narrative and do it before anyone else decides to do it for me. But the main reason is to share things I’ve learned with transparency, like this:

1. The comments sections on internet posts are not a reflection of how people respond to you in real life.

Online vitriol feels personal because it’s designed to mimic real-life interaction, but the people leaving those comments don’t know you. They’re reacting to an idea of you that they’ve filtered through their own projections and ideals. Hate commenters rarely care about facts, nuance, or context; even fewer think before joining in on a comment thread full of personal attacks, especially when posting from an anonymous username with a faceless avatar.

I didn’t tell anyone I practiced scientology (besides the people I was doing it with) for years, believing that the reactions I saw to others online would be the ones I’d get in person. When I finally decided to share, I was met with interest, curiosity, or simply indifference, not condemnation. I have yet to meet a person in real life (and I’m including online communities in which I’ve actually got to know people in this) who judges me negatively for it. It has not ruined relationships. It has not diminished my credibility. It has not affected my interactions.

People have a very strong capacity to overlook differences when they know you or have something else in common with you that overrides any value they’d get from judging you. If you get canceled online for something trivial (or even something not so trivial), the chances are your friends, family, and close associates won’t give a shit. You might have to do some damage control and write an empathetic response if you’re in the public eye, but it likely won’t be the life-destroying moment the comments section would have you believe.

• Why am I sharing this? Because that thing you’re worried you might be judged for in real life because you’ve seen people get torn apart for it online might be the thing that’s holding you back from something… and you might not have anything to fear.

2. People with really good intentions get lumped into the ‘bad person’ category through associations with things that others don’t necessarily understand.

We’re quick to assign guilt by association, even when the individuals involved have no control over the wider system. Think about the individuals working at the NIH now that the Trump administration has abruptly shifted public health priorities. Those lucky enough to still be employed haven’t lost their integrity, ethics, or commitment to evidence-based work. When I tell my clients they need to take all the DEI out of their grant applications, I’m not saying that because I’m personally aligning with the belief that DEI isn’t important. Could the NIH’s employees and I still be considered complicit or suspect for following the new guidelines even though we couldn’t do our jobs without following them? Yes.

This dynamic happens all the time: people join institutions for personal or professional reasons, often with good intentions, and then get flattened into a caricature when that institution becomes controversial. We often don’t pause to ask what their motivations were or what they were actually doing. We’re not very good at separating people from systems, even when we know the systems are flawed.

I was 19 when I was first introduced to scientology, looking for tools to help me communicate better, process information more efficiently, and understand my emotional reactions. There’s a massive difference between the operations of the Church of Scientology and its various staff branches and the public members, and there is an even wider difference between them and those who practice some or all of scientology’s processes independently. Most people who get into this as non-staff members or independents are doing so because they want to make the world a better place. That’s not a bad intention, but it’s contextualized as bad because people (that they usually have no association with) within the wider organization have done things that are, well, bad. And those are the things that people who have no other knowledge of the topic actually hear about.

I know I’m not a bad person. At least, no worse than average (we’re all flawed, and that’s OK). I know I don’t use anything I’ve learned from scientology in a way that negatively impacts other people. But the word itself associates me with the questionable actions of several individuals I’ve never met. That’s just something I have to live with—and next time I want to make a difference, I’ll go volunteer at the Cats’ Protection League instead.

• Why am I sharing this? Because the number of institutions, businesses, individuals, etc., that are becoming divisive is currently increasing at a rapid rate. Social media is making everything so much more visible, and even the associations you and others in your life have that appear ‘safe’ might become ‘bad’ to be a part of/associated with with little warning. The instinct when this happens now tends to be to criticize first, cut people off, make assumptions. It’s a good idea to hold off on the judgment and instead ask questions so you fully understand the situation and motivations.

3. Very few things are 100% good or 100% bad, and we’re really bad at seeing that.

We crave certainty and clean lines between good and bad, right and wrong, and us and them because we want clarity despite life rarely being clear. Reality is nuanced, contradictory, and often deeply uncomfortable to categorize. But we try. We create boxes, sort people and ideas into them, and get angry when someone doesn’t stay where we put them.

We hate manipulation but admire charismatic entrepreneurs who repackage the same tactics under a brand. We hate people who believe weird things unless those weird things are the ones we’ve normalized. Moral clarity is easy to present online, but real life doesn’t work that way. We’re all full of contradictions, and most of us are hypocrites when it comes to the systems we benefit from. Not even in an evil or deceitful way. It’s human nature to compartmentalize what benefits us and condemn what doesn’t and for what fits in each category to change as the systems around us change. Even broken systems often offer something that’s very real and valuable to the people inside them: belonging, structure, tools, purpose… That’s why people stay and don’t always see what others on the outside find so obvious.

Someone working in tech might genuinely believe in the power of innovation, decentralization, and building tools to make life better while working for a company with toxic leadership, poor labor practices, or a dubious history with data ethics. Are they a bad person for being there? Maybe. Maybe not. It depends on the context, their choices, their level of influence, and the alternatives available to them. But social media makes no room for that kind of grey area and rewards black and white thinking. Declaring that you would never make such compromises. You see the truth. You are on the right side.

But are you? You’re probably benefiting from exploitative labor every time you shop. If you have a retirement fund, you’re likely profiting from industries you oppose. You drive on expropriated land. Yes, try to do better, but nobody can realistically do so from a place of moral perfection. It’s easy to say, “I would never be part of something like that,” without considering the thousands of ways we all participate in systems we don’t fully agree with. It’s easy to point fingers at other people’s contradictions without examining our own. It’s more important to ask questions. What was this person trying to do? What did they believe they were getting into? What information did they have? What pressures were they under? What did the situation look like from inside?

Of course, we should sometimes call things out. Some systems are toxic. Some beliefs are harmful. Some people use their power to hurt others. That should be challenged. But we need to distinguish between “this person made a bad call” and “this person is irredeemable.” The impulse to dehumanize people who’ve been part of something we deem unacceptable is strong, but it doesn’t help anyone. It doesn’t change anything. Sometimes, it’s even driven by a desire for control and feeling superior than anything else.

• Why am I sharing this? The world is getting more and more divided, and it’s damaging human connection. We’re taught to resolve discomfort as quickly as possible, and sitting with ambiguity is uncomfortable… But contradiction is normal. You can like something and still be critical of it. You can disagree with someone and still respect them. You can admit that something helped you even if it also hurt you or others. Most of us live in that tension every day, whether we’re aware of it or not. If we want to understand each other, which is a prerequisite for creating change, we have to be willing to hold opposing truths and accept that someone can be part of a flawed system and still act with integrity.

4. Connection is everything, and we’re getting worse at it

If I had to sum up what I took away from over a decade of practicing scientology, and the thing I still carry in my day-to-day life, it’s that human connection shapes everything and the way we communicate with each other is, every time we do it, either contributing to connection or taking from it. Your identity, decisions, healing, goals, career, relationships… whether you consciously recognize it or not, these all hinge on your connections and how you communicate with them. I know that sounds obvious, but I keep seeing more and more evidence that people are overlooking the value of being in connection with others. I see videos on the socials every day of people describing how they don’t need anything from anyone or that they don’t owe anyone anything. We do need each other. We do owe each other.

I didn’t know how to listen until I learned how. I didn’t know how to speak so people would actually hear me until I understood intention and the difference between reacting and responding. These skills shape my work, friendships, learning, conflict management… everything. Intentional communication that leads to connection is a superpower, but we don’t get an instruction manual. We have to learn it by doing it, and we’re doing it less and less as more and more of life is moved online. Remote work, remote friendships, remote courses. Groceries ordered online and dropped off at the door. It’s limiting our ability to connect and create structure, consistency, and places where we feel we belong.

We swipe, scroll, and film videos. We join programs, follow influencers, and consume endless content without actually taking any action in a way that can really feel like connection, but isn’t. Connection comes from real presence and showing up fully with people in situations that might be messy or where people don’t agree. This can, of course, exist online. I’m part of four online communities I love specifically because they do facilitate real connection. But a lot of what we do online doesn’t.

Additionally, a lot of the online self-help and coaching culture feeds into this narrative that we can create our own realities, making it sound empowering and freeing to build a life that reflects your own values. But it also encourages people to do this in a way that they start acting like they’re the only person who matters (that “I don’t owe anyone anything” attitude). I knew someone who built her inner world so well that nobody else could ever measure up to her expectations, and she was constantly frustrated by people not conforming to a reality that only existed in her mind. It didn’t come across as empowering, but isolating, because it gradually drove people away from her who would most likely have stuck around if she wasn’t trying to make them fit into ‘her world’ and blaming them if they didn’t.

Nobody can live in a vacuum, and the desire for connection to be easy, conflict-free, and ‘safe’ in that everyone you’re connected with agrees with you is getting in the way of human interaction. If you can’t handle discomfort in real relationships with people and your life only works perfectly when nobody else challenges it, that not only makes for quite sustainable relationships but also silos people with similar views and increases disagreement.

Connection benefits from imperfection. Being associated with something controversial can actually make you more interesting as it can become a conversation starter or a reason for someone to lean in. It might encourage someone else to share something controversial they are or have been associated with. There’s risk in sharing something vulnerable or unpopular, but fear loses its grip on you when you stop trying to hide. People are hungry for meaning and belonging. We always have been and always will be. Honesty and sharing things that we think people don’t want to hear creates space for others to say me too or tell me more about that.

And that’s why I wanted to share what I have shared here.

• Communication that leads to connection and the ability to show up honestly is one antidote to the lack of human connection that we are all, to some degree, experiencing with the world in its current state.

Would I have learned these things if I hadn’t been a scientologist? Probably. But that’s my truth, and I’m not ashamed to admit it. Even if you think I should be…