Religious Trauma Support

I grew up in a family with two parents who didn’t want religion for themselves but wanted it for my younger brother and me. Every Sunday, they dropped us off at a big evangelical church for the Sunday School program and picked us up again an hour-and-a-half later. At Sunday School, I heard Bible stories about a God who so-loved the world and also destroyed the world in a flood. A God who holds us in the palm of His hand and also would spit us out of His mouth for being lukewarm. A God who leads us beside still waters and also turned Lot’s wife into a pillar of salt. I can’t say for sure that the headaches and OCD started because of that, but I’m fairly certain they did.

The summer, I was ten, Billy Graham was preaching on my grandmother’s television set. Without being born again, he said, we were hell-bound, but with a simple prayer, we would be spared. He called it “The Good News”, but it sounded like terrible news to me. I looked around the living room to see if anyone else found his words appalling, but my grandmother and my uncle were both nodding in agreement. On the TV screen, I watched as droves of people got up out of their seats to go forward to receive salvation (years later, I would learn that many of those people were hired by the marketing team). In that moment, I made a decision: I must be the one who’s wrong. I said the prayer, repeating silently after Billy, and thus began my life as a church-going, “on-fire”, “plugged-in” Christian. Sunday School teacher at 16, worship leader at 18, youth pastor at 20, internationally-distributed worship leader and recording artist by my mid-20s. Somehow I’d gone all in without even realizing that the foundation of my belief system was fear and shame. Because of this, I was also numb to the other ways evangelical religion was violating me and others. When it all reached a tipping point at age 26 and my faith crisis-ed, my world opened and also crumbled.

My healing path has been about tending to the little me who didn’t run screaming from my grandmother’s living room that day, but instead, succumbed to self-abandonment. A life-altering depression and the birth of my first daughter became an open door into my own deepest experience. But as the years went by, I found that the harms were still imprinted somewhere inside me. I was diagnosed with c-PTSD and suffered severe chronic fatigue. My marriage collapsed. Deeper healing began when I started practicing yoga (despite the stern warnings of Mark Driscoll!) and began to understand the data my body was giving me. I learned to soften around constriction, befriend the terrible feelings and trust myself again. Slowly, my trauma began to thaw.

My own journey to reclaim my life inspires me to hold space for others navigating similar tender terrain. Using the tools of somatic embodiment, I help clients reconnect with their inner-knowing, address past wounds, and build inner resilience. I also incorporate other healing practices when called for, such as expressive writing, guided meditation and simple ritual.