Queer, Holy & Divinely Led | with Guest, Rev. Rainbow Weldon (PT1)

Part 1: Growing Up Spiritual

This is Part 1 of a special 3-part series celebrating queer spirituality, authenticity, and discovery, with the fabulous Rev. Rainbow Weldon: Queer New Thought Minister, Conscious Creator, and Sacred Activist

Rainbow is a New Thought Minister, Consciousness Coach, Meditation Facilitator, and Creative Spiritual Activist with over 20 years of experience helping individuals, couples, and groups move through real transformation. She’s the founder and spiritual director of the Queer Spirit Collective, an online community and gathering space rooted in connection, authenticity, queer joy and spirituality. She’s ordained through Centers for Spiritual Living, lives and teaches from a place of deep intention and simplicity… and is also the proud mom of four cats and one amazing human.

In Part 1, Rainbow shares her about her spiritual upbringing in the Bible Belt, growing up with New Thought, and what it means to see life through a spiritual lens from an early age. Suzanne and Rainbow talk about identity, difference, belonging, and the making of a person who somehow came into this world already named Rainbow and fully had to grow into it. 

And yes, there are guest appearances by the kitten she’d just adopted at the time.

To check out Rainbow's work, go to: queerspiritcollective.com

Thank you for listening! Learn more at suzannsole.com

Check out Suzanne's spiritual and sassy t-shirts at personallyspiritual.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

To me, it's all about oneness, this idea that we are all connected, interrelated, one with each other. There's one energy, one divine source, one presence, that which some call God. You can use the word spirit, life, universe, um, that is moving through all of us and and experiencing itself through us.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

You're listening to the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast with Suzanne Soule, episode 76. Hey, you glorious beings of stardust and light, and welcome to the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast, where we get into the shit show. The healing and spiritual awakening journey can be. I'm your host, Suzanne Soul, comedian, lifelong spiritual student, and I'm sharing some of the nuggets I've learned along my journey that have helped me, and that I hope help you too. Welcome to a very special three-parter where we are celebrating queer spirituality and authenticity with queer spiritual director, conscious creator, and sacred activist Rev Rainbow Weldon. Rainbow, yes, that is her given name, is an ordained New Thought Minister through Centers for Spiritual Living, a consciousness coach and meditation facilitator with over 20 years of experience helping individuals and groups wake up to who they really are. She's the founder and spiritual director of the Queer Spirit Collective, an online community creating space for queer joy, spirituality, and connection. A community she started after she was talking about wanting to start this kind of a community at the time that we recorded this podcast in late 2025. So how about that for manifestation? Anyways, she's also a lovely and amazing soul I've known for a long ass time. In this series, we talk about spirituality, identity, grief, healing, ego, awakening, and what it means to become more fully yourself and connect with your spirituality while still being gloriously human. And you can enjoy some guest appearances by the kitten she'd just adopted at the time. In part one, we get into her upbringing and new thought, and how a spiritual lens can make it all make sense. Anyways, let's get into it, shall we? Rainbow, you there?

SPEAKER_00 2:27

Would you like me to call you Rev Rainbow? Oh, oh, sorry. I was just, you know, reading The Science of Mind. Rev Rainbow Weldon! Welcome to the Spiritual Shit Show Interview Shit Show. Yes, you can just call me Rainbow. Hey, just Rainbow. Yes. Okay, welcome, Just Rainbow. Yes, just Rainbow. Well, you know, you you know me, you knew me when I know Rainbow a long time.

SPEAKER_01 2:52

She is such a delight, and I'm so excited to have you here on the shit show to talk about all the amazing stuff you're up to and your journey. Oh my God, the Ruth Cup.

SPEAKER_00 3:07

Oh, and even better, Supreme. Supreme. My niece was over and saw the mug, and she goes, Did you have a mug made of you? And I went, How old do you think I am?

SPEAKER_01 3:22

But I'd very for those who can't see us, tell us who that is.

SPEAKER_00 3:27

Yes. It is uh the Supreme RGB, Ruth Baderginsberg, on my uh mug here. And I guess it resembles me.

SPEAKER_01 3:40

Oh my god. Well, she's amazing, so it's uh an awesome uh thing to be compared to. For sure. Um I I checked out your Instie and I love, love, love your bio. So I just wanted to go through that a hot second. It says exploring life through a spiritual lens, Enneagram nine, which is the most loveliest of all the Enneagrams, manifestor, ADHD, queer, conscious creator, sacred activist, spiritual director. Let's go through them one by one. That's great. Yes. Yeah, so exploring life through a spiritual lens. First, I want to ask you, I read on your bio that you grew up with new thought. Yes. So I kind of want to just start there. Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

So I had a very interesting upbringing um growing up in Georgia in the Bible Belt with metaphysical spiritual seekers as parents in the 80s, um, all about the positivity. But I was, you know, meditating since I was like five. My mom went through hypnosis school when I was about eight, nine, and so did my aunt. And so I always got to be their guinea pig. So, like, I can't even tell you how many times I was hypnotized, did past life aggressions.

SPEAKER_01 5:05

Oh my God, I love it.

SPEAKER_00 5:07

Like, we'd be in the grocery store, and my mom would be like, Hold out your arm. I'm like, Mom, she's put out your arm, now hold strong and do muscle testing and have me hold different foods. And I would be like a teenager so embarrassed in the grocery store, you know, and like friends would come over and be like, What's in your cabinet? And I'm like, Oh, I don't know. It's some kind of mushroom growing that that like it makes a healthy tea, you know. So I was yeah, uh had a very unique perspective um on life growing up. And my parents found the Atlanta Church of Religious Science. Um, that's what it was called at the time. And we started going there when I was about five.

SPEAKER_01 5:50

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 5:51

And they studied there through um Dr. Kennedy Schultz was the minister at the time. And again, an interesting experience being a child, seeing a minister, a spiritual leader that is an out gay man in Georgia. Granted, we were in, you know, downtown Atlanta. Um but these things that are um I see in my life now, I can look back and be like, wow, how it's so interesting how all these pieces came together, you know, uh to kind of lay some of that foundation.

SPEAKER_01 6:29

Being in the Bible belt and then you're having this new thought. I mean, what an amazing experience. How did you relate to the see the other kids and the people around you? I mean, you must have been like, listen, I've got the insider info that you guys don't know.

SPEAKER_00 6:47

No, in fact, it was a lot more like I felt what I would now understand as like a little bit of shame, you know, because I felt different. I didn't fit in, you know, in all those times when you're growing up, that's what's so important, right? You're just trying to fit in. And so I felt a little bit like I don't talk about these things outside of my house or with, you know, so I kind of felt like, but yet it would also be fun when people would ask, and maybe more like in high school when I had some friends that would be a little bit more into some stuff like, you know, tarot or the Ouija board and you know, the stars and the moon and astrology and all that kind of stuff and angels and that I was always into that I would, yeah, I would kind of like feel like I could share a lot. And you know, then my mom was the super cool, you know, that they could talk to about and be hypnotized and stuff like that.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

So there wasn't Ravenio's mom's house. She's we're going over to Ravenio's her mom's gonna hypnotize us.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Right. She would always honey be home by dinner. Right. Get get the parents' permission first.

SPEAKER_01 8:04

But that's amazing. God, that's so amazing. I love it. I'm you know, I don't know if anyone uh doesn't know about New Thought. Um, I would say we're talking um Church of Religious Science uh started from the philosophy of Ernest Holmes. We're talking Unity Church from Charles Fillmore, Middle Myrtle Fillmore, and I'm sure there's a slew of others, but those are the two main ones I know. And if you were to put it in an like a kind of in an in the nutshell, New Thought, the the philosophy around, oh, there's the kitty.

SPEAKER_00 8:36

You're trying to ask this deep question, and I'm like, can we just play with cats?

SPEAKER_01 8:40

We play with a cat today.

SPEAKER_00 8:42

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

So this is Mouse. This is Mouse. I see it's a very cute black and white kitten for those people who only kind of narrate it all.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

I know. So I watch podcasts and like when people do that at some point. It's like for those that are just listening.

SPEAKER_01 8:57

Those that are just listening.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

Well, and I think I I might speak a little bit even more specifically to science of mind, um, as I am an an ordained minister in with Centers for Spiritual Living, and that teaches the philosophy of science of mind based on Dr. Ernest Holmes. And it is a philosophy, um, and it's really a way of life. It's very practical. It's um not about dogma or morality or judgment like a lot of religion seems to be more these days. Um, and it's a a spiritual path, you know, with spiritual principles and practices such as affirmations and affirmative prayer, meditation, visioning, visualization, contemplation, mindfulness, all of these things that are like popping up all in pop culture now, right? And that's what's so bizarre just in my lifetime, going from like, you know, hide the crystals to now the crystals, like yeah, now it's like yeah, like certain my dad's just exact, exactly. The Southern Baptist family's coming over, put away the Louise Hay book, hide the crystals, put you know, yeah. So it's spiritual practices and principles. Um, to me, it's all about oneness, this idea that we are all connected, interrelated, one with each other. There's one energy, one divine source, one presence, that which some call God. You can use the word spirit, life, universe, um, that is moving through all of us and and experiencing itself through us. Um so I'm a big advocate for authenticity, uh, self-expression of really just living your life to the fullest um with who you are, because that is the way that God gets to know itself better through all of us. Um and the same ideas, you know, loving each other and trying my best not to judge and have compassion in and at the same time balancing that part of me that is very much that activist, you know, and for what's right and what's good, which comes from my spiritual values of oneness, that all beings are, you know, wholeness, are inherently worthy, are the beloved or divine expression of the one. So I see and desire a world for all beings to know that and to have um access for things that they need to have access to, be that fully expressed being. Um so that's like a sacred activism kind of comes in, right? So not in the place of you're wrong, you're bad, blah, blah. Um, but really holding the vision for what we want and speaking out when things are not in alignment with those values. And that's okay too. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

And I want to get into that a little bit more, but I first want to ask, like, or just um kind of reflect the idea of what you're how you're describing new thought. And what I'm hearing is it's like a just it's it's a different kind of connection with source, with God, with spirit. It's more visceral, it's more experiential, and that's like what I'm hearing uh from what you're sharing is that you are not like a second level. You have to go through this guy to get to God's. Exactly. It is the direct revelation of flowing through you.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

Yes. And all be all of us have that opportunity to tap into that source within us, and the wisdom lives within us. Um I think another big part of it, at least for me in my ministry, is the idea of responsibility too, you know, like when when something occurs in life, instead of just looking out there and blaming and shaming, it's like that mirror opportunity to look within and do that healing as an opportunity of growth. Yeah. And that's what I mean by the responsibility by looking at what's like what's my part in this, what and getting to those hidden beliefs, those things that and it's usually, you know, that idea of not good enough, unworthiness, or the lie of, you know, scarcity, of lack and unworthiness, not enough time, not all those things that we come to know or believe about ourselves, then unraveling that back to the truth.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:41

And it's like, you know, I mean, I hear these things and I think about, you know, there's all these different religions, and I know Christianity, and you were saying you're in the Bible belt. And to me, that it is what Jesus was talking about. Oh, yeah. Pluck the beam. It's exactly what you just said. Oh, yeah. Like you are having these experiences you're having this feeling about someone. Check in. Yes. Look inward. Exactly. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 14:09

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

Yeah. So how do you move through your own personal life and have a spiritual lens around that? What are some ways that you practice that spirituality for you?

SPEAKER_00 14:23

Yeah. It really isn't everyday moment by moment. You know, it's not so much now like the a separate dedicated time for spiritual practice. It's a in my active everyday life, as the upset comes because of whatever it is, the phone call, the text, the person that cut me off at the road, the being out of what I wanted at the grocery store, you know, like those moments of or the feelings of, you know, what that come up that are like, ugh. Pausing and using that as the moment to be like, okay, what am I really upset about? What am I believing in this moment? What is the truth? Feeling it to letting myself like, uh, you know, I move and shake my body uh a lot. You know, like when things are hard. What's this lady doing in the grocery station?

SPEAKER_01 15:22

She's having a fit. Like I'm clearing my aura.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Just people just, I love it. So yeah, it is um, you know, but it looks like so many different things too, but it it's just such an integrated part of my life that sometimes it's like, yeah, what is it? It's like, well, I could go through and it's being inspired by something creative. Um, I love like content, podcast, art, you know, things that are funny. Um that opens something up. Nature. I love being in nature. Kentucky is beautiful, um, and I can easily get to some mountains or a creek and take take a nice or just drive, you know, by the rolling hills and all the horses. And um, nature definitely is a place where I find that deep connection. And I do a lot of like walking kind of meditation. Um, I have to do something pretty physical, a lot a lot of physical energy.

SPEAKER_01 16:22

Yeah, well, I get that. I can I can I can relate to that because that's our nervous system that we're wanting to de discharge. So you were saying um, like you're practicing throughout your life and throughout your day. And what is your kind of overreaching belief system? Like I am doing this because. Um, I'm doing this thing called life because, or I'm doing this. Like, I'm I'm using yeah, I'm looking at through spiritual lens. I'm do using these spiritual practices in my life because.

SPEAKER_00 16:55

Um, I think because the other way of doing it is miserable. Amen. Yeah, you know, it's yeah, because if I'm leaving the stories I'm telling myself and I'm judging and comparing myself to everyone else, and I'm thinking that I'm separate and I'm thinking that I'm not enough, that's just a really hard way to do life. And so when I can, you know, catch myself, and then the more I you practice and over a lifetime, you know, but I say, uh, yeah, I've been doing these practices for over 40 years. Um, and it's still an ongoing practice, and there's things I still come back to that it's like, oh yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah, I guess. Yeah. You get it again. So yeah, to um I think I'm also just a very curious person. I'm very um fascinated by life and people and things. Um, and that all of that to me is in that realm of spiritual of just seeing beyond that the what some may call like the ego 3D experience. Um and anything seeing beyond that, that metaphysical, beyond physical, or uh to me is kind of what the spiritual lens is. Um not looking at everything as just in the world of effect, but what's the cause? What's the bigger picture? What's the connection? What's the yeah?

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Yeah. And so how do you relate to your ego in this practice?

SPEAKER_00 18:38

Um I just notice it a lot. Yeah. That's the main thing. I love that. And like, oh a lot of times I kind of call it out. I I process a lot externally, so I feel like I have a lot of insights and ahas with conversations with people. Um, and some even on podcasts, Rob might somebody ask me a question I'm talking about something. I'm like, oh yeah, I never quite thought of it that way. I find myself a lot saying to people, like calling it out in conversations with friends or other, you know, colleagues or people that I'm talking to and be like, I know, but I really want to be right on this one. And I really, you know, there's that part of me that just could just go and have the list, but I realize I'm just gonna let it go because even if I do that, it's still gonna be more and more like it's not that's not gonna solve that dynamic at all.

unknown 19:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:36

It sounds like, you know, processing through conversation, which I also really benefit from as well. That's a way that I help I'm able to get those light bulbs. Wait a minute while I'm telling the person, I just thought of something while I'm telling you this.

SPEAKER_00 19:50

Yes, yes, yes. And kind of makes sense why you're doing a podcast, right? It's a good thing.

SPEAKER_01 19:57

Yes, yes, yes. Um, I'm I'm learning so much from this podcast from people like you and uh the other folks that I've had on here. I'm just getting illuminated like constantly. So I'm very blessed. I'm very lucky. So um let's go to Enneagram nine. Okay. Yes, yeah. So Enneagram is this. I don't I don't know. The Enneagram is a number numbered system of personality cluster kind of thing, would you say?

SPEAKER_00 20:29

Yeah. Yeah. I used to be better at explaining it, but I haven't like in many.

SPEAKER_01 20:34

I think a lot of people know who it is. I'm a four, which is the worst.

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Okay, but keep going. I recently had an existential crisis and thought I might be a four instead of a nine, and then I realized I was just really in my emotions and in the height of my grief and couldn't figure out and everything, and everything was just felt like, ah, that's uh that's it. But I have a lot of four. I get that. That that yeah, emotional, but maybe, yeah. Yeah. So as a nine is the peacemaker. Um, and how I really relate to that is I really can't like see all sides in any situation, which is sometimes hard and frustrating for myself because it's sometimes harder for me because I can go right to the compassion for why the other person did whatever, instead of giving myself the space to be like, yeah, that hurt, and that's not right. Yeah, and that is something that is I'm kind of just now learning over the past handful of years. Um, so yes, that peacemaker to me, how it shows up is um, yeah, seeing kind of all all different sides and perspectives of things, and at its core, it's the not wanting, you know, avoiding conflict. And um, so it showed up for most of my life as people please. As not really having my own idea or opinion or very strong attachment to anything. Um, because I could just kind of be flexible and go along to get along. And well, where do you want to eat? What do you want to do? So, you know, that's kind of a lot of the things that you know around the nine, and coming into more of a healthy, conscious, balanced version of being a nine is more of that just seeing all perspective things, um, but also not I no longer avoid conflict. That's great. Asked a lot of people around me recently. It may not be it's a little bit it's a little bit of a shit show. Um but I'm learning and speaking up for myself much more. Um that's wonderful. And sometimes I think we have to go like extreme to the other side. It's like, I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. I don't know what I want. Give this like okay, she figured it out and she yelled it. I think she figured out she's telling us.

SPEAKER_01 23:14

That's awesome. Yeah, I'm yeah, I get it. I totally get it.

SPEAKER_00 23:18

So it's been a big journey around Yeah, knowing what I really want and not just doing everything for everyone else um in my life. And then, you know, just to might as well go there now, just to share why. Um that's been extra up for me recently, is through um so my mom died about a year and a half ago. Yes. My aunt that I mentioned as well, she died a few months before her. I'm so sorry. Um, your mother was lovely.

SPEAKER_01 23:50

I got the opportunity to meet her. She was a lovely, lovely woman. Yes, yes, yes. She really was.

SPEAKER_00 23:57

So that on top of um being an only child, my dad died about 20 years ago. Um, and then oh gosh, maybe nine months after my mom's death, um, my wife, partner, and I have 17 years separated. So it was a lot of grief and change at once. Um, but it has felt like a fast track to spiritual healing in a deeper way than I could even ever imagine around that self-love and that self-worth and the knowing who I am, and find, you know, all of a sudden from care having all these other things around me and always caring for and it living life kind of in response or reaction to, you know, and I have a daughter too who's not, you know. So it was like there was lots of people around me with big personalities and ideas and things that that nyneness in me could just kind of go along and get along. And now it's like, okay, who am I? What do I want? Even from like decorating my space to um yeah, just discovering new things. Like, what do I want to watch on TV? What do I want to go out or do for fun? What do I want to eat or learn to cook? Um amazing. Yeah. There's a lot more to that. But that that yeah, I think that kind of wraps that up around the peacemaking stuff.

SPEAKER_01 25:50

It it feels like, oh, just to reflect back, it feels like uh another layer of a spiritual awakening. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Through the the challenges.

SPEAKER_00 26:04

Yes, for sure. And exper and moving through the grief and the big emotions and all of that and giving myself space to do that. Um Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:20

Well, that's I support that wholeheartedly. And uh I just uh uh I honor your w the spiritual lens that you are experiencing this through because these are big human experiences. And yeah, yeah, so God bless. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:40

And in the meantime, I just you know keep adopting kittens. She's number four.

SPEAKER_01 26:52

You're like, you know what? Today's been a tough day.

SPEAKER_00 26:54

I think I'm gonna stop at this at Humane Society. Well, and sometimes, you know, my daughter and I go just to like love up on the animals, and uh it's it's double hard to try to control my own impulse and desire for more cats than when you have my my precious little one look, um please, please, please. Oh, I just feel this connection and I just know and I just need this cat. Oh, and I'm just like helpful. I know. I was like, I'm trying to, you know. You can fix my Achilles heel.

SPEAKER_01 27:34

Next thing you know, Rainbow's like, I have 35 cats now, and I can't leave the house anymore.

unknown 27:39

Right.

SPEAKER_01 27:41

That is amazing. Okay, and I'm gonna keep going through your Instagram bio because it's giving me all the juice of life.

SPEAKER_00 27:48

That's so funny. I almost updated recently. I was like, I haven't been on this in a while. Maybe I should and then I couldn't figure out how to get in it, and I was like, oh well, whatever. So I'm glad I didn't. I'm glad I didn't. I just get bored and it's the ADHD. So I'm just like, that's been on there for a year. I need to change this.

SPEAKER_01 28:06

Okay, we're off to a good start with an amazing convo with Rainbow Weldon. In part two, we go deeper into how Rainbow actually lives her spirituality and her day-to-day life. So you should probably be there. You know what I mean? You probably need it. Anyways, as always, this has been the Spiritual Shit Show Podcast. My name is Suzanne Sowell. Thank you so motherfucking much for listening. And I will see you on the next one. Roll it gorgeous.