Jenna Miscavige Hill
Benefitting The Edible Schoolyard Project
At a ranch for the kids of Scientology’s most powerful members, you don’t get to see your parents for more than a few hours a week. In the military-style dormitories, children spend their days pulling weeds, hauling rocks, and evenings in Scientology studies. As the niece of Scientology’s most powerful leader, David Miscavige, Jenna didn’t know things like birthday parties or family vacations. She knew fear, work, and longing. But when you view people from the outside world as scary, how do you leave the only life you’ve ever known? And what do you find on the other side?
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In this episode, we talk about:
Growing up in the isolated world of Scientology
What really went on at the ranch.
Fear-based teachings.
Leaving the church.
Re-entry into the world outside of Scientology
Wise Words
We slept there in dormitories and we had jobs and we did schooling and Scientology studies. And then we would see our parents just for a few hours on the weekend. Like usually it was like Friday night and then we would see them Saturday morning.
In Scientology they believe that we are all like a spirit, which they call a Phaeton but almost like your body is like a meat appendage that you're sort of stuck in, that you really are the Phaeton and you get a new body each lifetime. And so I guess nobody is really a child. If you're looking at it through that point of view, you're a Phaeton that's billions of years old and you're just Phaeton in a small body or a young body.
And that sort of idea that you're not a body, you're a Phaeton I think that same concept is used to excuse things like why aren't children with their family members. And it's like, if we're all Phaetons then one body isn't really the parent of another. I was told this by my aunt. And so it's sort of the excuse why it's okay, that we're not with our family all the time, like regular children are.
I sort of viewed people from the outside world as a little bit scary, like you would tell them the wrong thing and it would become this big problem.
When I was younger I longed for my parents every day. I would have dreams at night that I was on a day off with my parents and that we went to the beach and I would wake up and it was like, oh, this again.
l learned from a young age there's no point in crying about anything because it doesn't matter. Nobody cares. And all it does is give you swollen eyes, it just made no difference.
The truth is that you've always done something wrong when you're there. There's always some infraction you've made, someone reported on you for something.
There's so many things that I had been fleetingly interested in as a kid, but there was no time. There wasn't any play time. There wasn't any drawing time. There wasn't art time. And so, you know, there's just so many things that I realized, oh, I had been interested in this since I was a kid, but I never had time to do it.
It's been really healing to find out that you actually still can learn things, like it's not too late to learn the piano or to learn pottery and your life isn't over, just because you missed out on your childhood. I'm still good at learning things. And I still love learning. And I think the contrast of not having been able to do it makes it so much better for me. It gives me more gratitude.
There have been so many times when my intuition and my body knew something before I even had the words to describe it, or before I could logically say what it was, that was the problem. And just to follow that, your body knows things and sees things that you don't always see.
Believe your gut because that's your real self.
Listening to your own intuition is very important, but I think that an even bigger one is that even if you're in a really bad situation and everything depends on it and feels like you'll lose everything...that might not be the case. It might just be a new beginning to something better.
Bravery is knowing things could be bad and will be hard, but having enough faith in yourself to know that you're worth it and that you will come through it and you will make the best of that.