Show Notes
Bec Sonkkila spent six years inside MISA, a Romanian yoga cult with a global reach and a guru currently imprisoned on serious criminal charges. She got out. Then she spent years figuring out what that actually meant — not just leaving, but rebuilding a self that had been systematically dismantled. That process became her work. Bec is a relationship and recovery coach specialising in coercive control, post-cult identity, and the kind of intimacy that nobody teaches you — the difference between connection and compliance, between desire and obligation, between a relationship that expands you and one that slowly erases you. Her approach is practical, body-based, and grounded in lived experience rather than textbooks. She draws on hypnotherapy, somatic work, and over a decade of deep study in human psychology and relational dynamics. She works with people who are done being confused about why their relationships feel wrong, and ready to understand what right actually feels like. Bec splits her time between New Zealand, Australia and Finland, works with clients internationally, and is currently writing about her cult experience and the long road back to a self you can trust.
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For 10 years Nicola Ranson was a disciple of the guru, Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh (AKA Osho) from India to Oregon until the commune collapsed amid criminal activity. She became a somatic psychotherapist specialising in trauma and has worked with many cult survivors. Nicola taught Counselling Psychology for 17 years on the adjunct faculty at National University. Her memoir, A Slice of Orange: loving and leaving the Osho/Rajneesh cult will be published by Unsolicited Press this December
Bec Sonkkila survived six years in the MISA yoga cult. Rebuilding her dismantled identity became her life's work. Today, she is an international recovery and relationship coach specialising in coercive control and post-cult identity. Using somatic practices, hypnotherapy and lived experience, Bec helps clients distinguish genuine connection from compliance. She splits her time between New Zealand, Australia and Finland, and is writing a book about finding a self you can trust.