Tag: spiritual abuse

  • What Is Real Safety — And How Do You Find It?

    Safety isn’t the absence of danger. It’s the presence of something. Learn how to recognize real safety in your body, test for it in relationships, and begin rebuilding trust with yourself — one small step at a time.

  • Overcoming Religious Trauma: The Theology of Self-Trust

    Self-distrust doesn’t arrive all at once. It gets installed — quietly, systematically, by systems that need you not to trust yourself in order to keep you close.

  • When Appeasement Becomes a Way of Life

    I didn’t have words for what happened to me for a long time. Laura Anderson’s Religious Power and Control Wheel gave me a map. Here I walk through each category — and share what I lived inside each one.

  • The Manufactured Desert

    I had a dream last night that I woke up screaming from. There was a shadow, a child’s room, a dark hallway. What I discovered sitting with it the next morning surprised me — I wasn’t wandering. I was remembering. This is what I finally understand about the desert.

  • Are We Human or Are We Dancer?

    Are we living from something true and rooted in us, or are we moving to someone else’s rhythm without even knowing it? I spent years dancing to a beat that wasn’t mine — convinced it was leading me home. This is what I learned about systems that use our deepest needs to keep us in…

  • What If I’d Driven Away? Learning Self-Compassion When You Can’t Forgive Your Own Choices

    What if one different choice could have changed everything? Through the lens of a moment sitting outside a church in a minivan, this post explores what it really means to stop punishing yourself, listen to the parts of you that are exhausted, and discover that self-compassion — not self-criticism — is the only way forward.…

  • Part 2: How Environment Shapes Us—From Worm Theology to Finding Ourselves

    How can I know what parts of me are shaped by my environment? And what parts of me are who I really am? As an adopted child who later joined an evangelical church, I’ve learned that worm theology doesn’t just teach you about God—it teaches you who you’re supposed to be. And unlearning that is…

  • The Roundabout: Why Religious Trauma Keeps Us Circling

    Isn’t it strange that the same religion teaching about the unconditional love of Jesus attaches a long list of expectations to those who follow him? Toxic religion is like having a parent who says they love you unconditionally but expects you to perform in a certain way to get what you need.

  • A Table for My Enemies

    “I have spent so much of my life closing and barring the door to the parts of myself I find unacceptable. I’m realizing as I get older how much energy it requires to continue to push on this door to prevent it from breaking open. Sitting on my desk is a little golden table—a sacred…

  • LOVE VS. CONSUMPTION: I DIDN’T KNOW THE DIFFERENCE

    I used to think being valued meant being loved. I didn’t know someone could see my worth and still devour me whole. Here’s what I learned about the difference between love and consumption.