Have you ever touched an electric fence? That jolt—sudden, unmistakable—teaches you instantly to keep your distance.
That’s what happened when someone looked at me with frustration recently. The energy in the room shifted. I felt the charge in my body, that familiar sensation of “I can’t do anything right”—even though their upset had nothing to do with me.
Learning to recognize when I’m feeling someone else’s charge instead of my own? That’s been one of the hardest parts of recovery from religious trauma. Because for years, I couldn’t tell the difference.
This is what Francis Weller calls the work of staying present with ourselves. In his book The Wild Edge of Sorrow, he writes: “This work relies upon our ability to stay present in our adult selves. This requires that we address the ways in which we dissociate, fragment, and slip into unconscious states.”
It sounds simple. Just be present. Just notice what you’re feeling.
But if you’ve experienced religious trauma, you know it’s anything but simple.
The Toxic Filter
The only way for me to do any of the exercises in Weller’s book and see things clearly is to make sure the toxic religious filter isn’t turned on. The more distance I have between myself and high control religion, the more clarity I gain on the ways those teachings created harm in my life. One of those ways was in learning—or rather, not learning—to be present for myself.
Being able to be present to myself is one of my most complex losses. I’m working through Weller’s book slowly, taking notes as I go. I thought I’d share what I’m learning here.
How do we stay present with our adult selves?
Writing has always been one of the ways I’m able to stay present to myself. For you, it might be some other creative outlet—or maybe just sitting still or having a deep conversation with someone who truly sees you. Whatever the practice, staying present is the only way to notice the often unconscious grief attempting to get our attention in our lives.
The Programs Running in the Background
Carl Jung said that complex griefs operate outside of our conscious mind. Think of those moments when you said “I can’t believe I did that”—you might be remembering a time when complex grief was operating behind the scenes.
Jung said, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”
The thought of unconscious programs running in the background of our lives is something most of us don’t want to think about. Most of us like to believe we have full control over our choices.
But in my own story, I have observed the ways unconscious grief has forced itself out into consciousness and wreaked havoc in my life and the lives of others in its attempt to find relief.
If you’ve ever wondered why you can’t seem to “just get over” your religious past, or why the same patterns keep showing up even after therapy, this might be why: we were never taught to actually be present with ourselves without judgment.
When Control Becomes the Roundabout
Here’s where it gets tricky for those of us with religious trauma: we were taught that looking inside was dangerous unless we did it the “right” way.
Religion offered a clear path to feeling in control—a way to “snuff out” sin in my life, an explanation for why I was bad, and the promise of redemption. All I had to do was follow the rules. Religion did offer me ways to search myself through prayer and meditation. When I was part of religion, I spent a lot of time writing, too.
But I also spent a lot of time making sure that what I wrote lined up with what the Bible said. If it didn’t, then it could be sin, the devil, and not the Holy Spirit. There was even a time I convinced myself I was possessed. Unfortunately, all the prayers of deliverance did not free my soul from the grief working so hard to get my attention.
So while religion created a way for me to search myself, I realize now it also created another obstacle to connecting with what I found.
Carl Jung also said, “Who looks outside, dreams; who looks inside, awakes.”
The Dream That Convinced Me I Was Awake
The process of getting inside—even through writing—in the years after toxic religion has been challenging. Even my attempts to be honest with myself have reminded me of all the ways my life felt out of control.
Religion provided me somewhere to channel what was happening: a sin to repent, a prayer to pray, a savior who would come in and rescue me over and over again. I prayed with the psalmists, thankful that his mercies were new every morning. And even though I’m still thankful for this truth, I’m no longer using it as justification for things that do not change.
I no longer want to live the dream of perfection somehow merely happening because of work that God just does in my life without my participation—because I’m too bad to ever figure it out myself. I want to be able to look inside and see what is actually there and live life awake.
I have learned that being able to set all the religious filters to the side when I look inside is absolutely necessary to get an accurate picture of what is there. If you read any of my earlier blog posts, you would be reading about someone who believed I was a sinner desperately crying out to be saved. The man I went to for guidance led me into the ditch with him. Over and over again, I wrote about myself standing desperately at the door of the church looking for help in the form of outside validation from a man.
As Jung said, it was only a dream—a dream that convinced me I was awake and on the road to redemption.
Picture the Roundabout
That road led to one of those roundabouts that didn’t have an outlet.
Picture it: you keep entering, looking for the exit that will take you where you need to go, but instead you just keep circling. Each time around you think, “This time I’ll see it, this time I’ll get it right,” but the signs all blur together. The speed increases. You become dizzy, disoriented. You can’t remember how many times you’ve passed the same landmarks. Eventually, you’re going so fast and you’ve been around so many times that you can no longer stand.
This is also an excellent description of complex grief. It keeps coming up and keeps us going in circles trying to find an outlet.
I find myself looking back on that time and wishing there had been an easier way than crashing and burning. People say the only way to learn is to hit rock bottom, but I really question that logic these days, especially when I look at the pain it brought not only on myself but on others.
No, I believe there are other ways to make it to recovery if we are willing to look honestly at what is inside and know that when we do see it, it’s not there to be judged but rather to reveal what we really need.
The roundabout taught me something crucial: I was searching for an exit that looked like worthiness, like being good enough. But toxic religion had designed the roundabout itself—a system where the exit could never appear.
In my next post, I’ll share what I learned about why that exit couldn’t exist: the theology that taught us we were worms, and what unconditional love actually looks like when we finally step off the roundabout.
If these reflections resonate with you, or if you’re working through your own religious trauma and complex grief, I invite you to connect. You can reach me at loriwilliamsliminalspace@gmail.com.
This is Part 1 of a 3-part series on staying present with ourselves as religious trauma survivors. Drawing on Francis Weller’s “The Wild Edge of Sorrow” and Carl Jung’s work on complex grief, this series explores why presence is so difficult after religious trauma—and what actually helps.
Coming next: Part 2 – Worm Theology vs. The God Who Sits With Us: What We Were Actually Taught About Ourselves
A Liminal Space 
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