Category: self-discovery

  • The Ground Beneath My Feet

    All I’d ever done was pretend—first in the family that raised me, then in the church. I didn’t even know I was pretending. Then I finally faced the truth, and people were talking about me. What followed was almost a decade of wandering. But what I’ve found in peer support groups isn’t another savior—it’s shared…

  • Breaking Down the Barriers to Love

    “I spent almost half a decade looking into the mirror and seeing someone else. Who did I see? Someone who everyone else expected me to be. People-pleasing doesn’t give your true self the opportunity to be loved—and it doesn’t give someone else the opportunity to be loved by your true self.”

  • When the Shell Cracks: Finding Truth Beyond Religious Performance

    Truth always finds a way to surface. Our ego tries to keep everything together, but eventually the shell cracks and what’s inside starts leaking out. If we’re brave enough to look at what seeps out instead of frantically patching the holes, we might find what we’ve been searching for all along.

  • You’re Not Crazy: Psychology Finally Recognizes Religious Trauma

    “To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson For years, those of us who walked away from toxic religion were told we just had a ‘bad church experience’—but a groundbreaking American Psychological Association article is finally validating what we’ve known…

  • Finding My Way Back to Myself

    Why did I so readily follow a dangerous man wherever he went? Why did it all feel like the right thing to do? Looking back on my time in church, I’m still trying to understand what made me believe a rigid belief system and a broken pastor could fill the gaps in my life. The…