I bumped into a friend and reader of my Substack the other day and they asked me, “Hey, where have you been?”

They said they missed my work. And to be honest, I missed my writing time.

And to be more honest, I got caught up in all the reading, writing, researching, planning, posting, that I lost track of my whole goal of my work.

So I took a break.

In the few months that have passed since my last post, we went through a lot. A scheduled surgery with a lengthy recovery. A health scare. Buying a new house. Dogs escaping the fence of said new house. Fixing said fence due to said escape. And, as you already know, fishing.

I have missed the community and the connection but as I sat to read, write, and research religious trauma, I couldn’t bring myself to write another article on the topic. I think it is incredibly important and continues to be a deeply painful reality for myself and so many others. As I listen to others talk about it, they have the moment, the steam, the gusto, the fervor to continue the work. And me, I had my plate of exhaustion. Not from the process, but from the world, circumstances, and the limits of my capacity.

I missed writing about rivers and streams and the ways I experience spirituality and wholeness in the river’s riffles. There is a deeply human excitement and dis-ease when a fish is on the line that only settles in celebration and exhale when the net has a catch.

To be more honest, an ambitious part of me (who I love) wanted to gain a little glimpse of notoriety at the cost of my truest sense of inner peace.

So, where have I been?

In retreat and recovery from the exhaustion and stress.

Along the banks of my favorite waters with the whitefish and trout.

Wrestling my inner-knowing and mustering the courage to return.

So, where will I go?

A gentle return to the riverside under a refreshed banner (again, am I right?)

I'm calling this place Between the Banks now. Same rivers. Same stories. Same chaplain who parents, fishes, and rows a boat. Just a name that finally fits.

I’ve missed this space.

And please feel free to unsubscribe if this isn’t your vibe.

You may have subscribed wanting to learn more about religious trauma only for me to go radio silent for a few months. I am sorry. That work is important, valuable, necessary, needed, and also extends beyond what I can reasonably commit to.

With care,

Andrew.

P.S. — If you became a paid subscriber under the religious trauma era, I'm happy to offer a refund. Just reply to this email. No questions asked.

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TW/CW: Depictions of church liturgy in the protestant tradition

You know the moment.

The music fades. The lights come up just enough to see the people around you. And then comes the command from the stage:

“Turn around and greet your neighbor! Take sixty seconds to say hello!”

Or perhaps it was the pressure to complete the “Connect Card”—that small piece of cardstock in the seat back pocket in front of you asking for your name, email, and address before you’d even decided if you felt safe in the room.

For years, I participated in these rituals. I shook the hands. I smiled the smile. I performed the warmth.

I even said the words from the stage.

But I often left those rooms feeling isolated and lonely.

If you have ever felt isolated in a sanctuary full of people, or invisible despite being on every volunteer roster, it wasn’t because you were doing community wrong.

It is because the system was designed for connection, not conversation.

The Illusion of Intimacy

I have been listening to Digital Minimalism, this week on the Libby app. In this book, Cal Newport makes a critical distinction that I have been chewing on that explains so much of the loneliness we feel in the modern world—and, I would argue, in high-control religious systems.

Newport argues that Connection and Conversation are not the same thing.

• Connection is low-bandwidth. It’s a “like” on social media or Substack, a wave, a brief acknowledgment, or a name on a roster. It is efficient. It is data.

• Conversation is high-bandwidth. It is messy. It involves tone, nuance, body language, and the risk of being truly seen. It is inefficient. It is human.

High-control systems are obsessed with connection. They want the data points. They want the “Connect Card” filled out. They want the visual of a full room (proximity).

But they are often unable to hold the tender space for real conversation.

Why? Because conversation implies mutuality. In a real conversation, there is space for two or more realities to exist. There is space for friction. There is space for a question that doesn’t have a pre-approved answer.

In many religious environments, connection is vertical—it serves the institution’s need for retention and growth. It reinforces power and control.

But conversation is horizontal—it serves the human need for being known.

When a system substitutes proximity for intimacy, you end up with a room full of people who know everyone’s name but no one’s story.

The Dignity of Disagreement

This isn’t just a communication issue; it is a dignity violation.

Donna Hicks, in her work on dignity, teaches us that true relationship requires the safety to be our authentic selves.

But in a system where belonging is conditional on believing the “right” things, authenticity becomes dangerous.

If there is no space for your disagreement, there is no space for you.

This matters because when we can't be ourselves, our bodies know it.

When your body senses that disagreement is dangerous, your nervous system engages a survival response.

In the trauma field, including religious trauma, we often talk about Fight or Flight nervous system response.

But in the lobby on a Sunday morning, the most common response is Fawn.

Fawning is the performance of connection.

It’s the smile you plaster on when you actually feel grief. It’s the “I’m doing blessed!” when you are actually crumbling.

It’s the agreement you voice when your soul is screaming “no.”

We fawn to stay safe.

We perform connection because we know that real conversation—the kind that includes our doubts, our boundaries, and our “no”—might cost us our belonging.

The Antidote to Isolation: Shared Humanity

In her research on self-compassion, Dr. Kristin Neff identifies Common Humanity as a critical step in healing from shame.

Shame thrives on the belief that “I am the only one.”

It convinces us that our doubts, our discomfort, or our need for boundaries are signs that we are broken or lacking in faith. It isolates us.

High-control systems reinforce this isolation. They suggest that if you are struggling to connect, it is a personal spiritual failing rather than a systemic design flaw.

But Neff teaches us that suffering and imperfection are not interruptions to the human experience—they are the human experience.

True connection requires the safety to share that humanity.

If you have to hide your struggle to belong, you aren’t experiencing community; you are experiencing conditional acceptance.

If you do not have the safety to say “no,” your “yes” is just compliance.

Real connection—the kind that heals rather than harms—is not threatened by your boundaries or your humanity. It welcomes the friction of conversation because it values the person more than the performance.

An Embodiment Practice: The Pause of Presence

We have been trained to override our bodies in social spaces.

We are taught to override the hesitation, the tightness in the throat, the urge to pull away.

Today, I invite you to try a practice I call The Pause of Presence. This is about noticing the difference between performing connection and being present.

If it feels safe for you:

1. Find a quiet seat. Place your feet flat on the floor. Feel the support of the ground beneath you.

2. Bring to mind a recent social interaction—maybe a coffee date, a family gathering, or a moment in a group.

3. Gently scan your body as you replay that moment.

   • Did you feel a tightness in your jaw?

   • Did your voice pitch up higher than usual?

   • Did you feel a leaning forward (fawning/pleasing) or a settling back (resting)?

4. If you notice signs of performing, simply acknowledge them with kindness. “Ah, there is my body trying to keep me safe. Thank you, body.”

5. Take a deep breath into your stomach. On the exhale, imagine dropping your shoulders.

6. Whisper to yourself: “I do not have to perform to be worthy.”

Fitting In vs. Belonging

As we navigate life after high-control systems, we are learning the difference between fitting in and belonging.

Fitting in requires you to change who you are to be accepted.

Belonging invites you to be who you are to be accepted.

You may have fewer people in your circle now. The room may not be as crowded. But if the people there are interested in your conversation, not just your connection...

That is a good place to start.

I’d love to hear from you in the comments: What is one way you notice your body “performing” connection when you don’t feel safe?

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Finding rest in the heart of winter.

The days are cold and the nights are long.

We are past the solstice, and I take some small comfort in knowing the light is, incrementally, returning.

But here in the great north, the calendar’s promise of a warmer sun is a distant truth. The immediate reality is the cold.

For as long as I’ve lived here, January has always held the year’s coldest days, a deep and biting chill that seeps into the bones. One winter this was -27º(F).

In response, I feel an undeniable pull inward.

My body wants to bundle up, to retreat, to rest. There is something ancient that lives in me, a primal memory that whispers of hibernation and stillness.

This whisper makes the consumer-driven demands of life feel jarring. The pressure to write, to create content, to post and share, feels like a tremendous effort.

In prior iterations of myself, I might have labeled this feeling as resistance or misalignment. Or, a high-control religious form would have called this sloth and sin.

I have lived what feels like many lives with my values and actions out of sync, and this is not that.

This quiet retreat doesn’t feel like a problem to be solved. It feels like the answer. It is the rhythm of rest this season demands.

There are no flowers blooming. The farm ponds are covered in ice. The song birds are gone.

Do I need to try to be more than the natural world around me?

This time of year has often invited me into self-criticism, but in the past, that criticism always came with an agenda.

It was a tool, a means to an end. It was about identifying flaws, setting goals, and spurring myself to action.

• What needs to change?

• What can be better?

• How can I optimize?

This year, something is different.

Compassionate Self-Reflection

I find myself asking a deeper question: What if self-reflection isn’t about redirection?

What if, instead, it can be a meta-level analysis of my being for the simple purpose of observation?

What if it’s about taking inventory without the pressure to perform?

To simply notice, to note, and to nod in acknowledgment. “Ah, there you are. I see you.”

I’m beginning to realize how much of the constant, anxious need for change was learned, adopted, and embedded in my psyche from years spent in high-control religious contexts.

In that world, staying “as you are” was a sin.

You were either growing closer to god or falling away; there was no middle ground for simply being.

The self was a project under constant, critical renovation.

Often times there were scriptures misquoted about the supposed dangers of being “luke warm.” Now I know that tactic was control, attempting to push my nervous system into hypervigilence instead of following rhythms of rest.

I think the grip of that old programming is finally starting to loosen.

The endless cycle of self-critique and forced “growth” is being replaced with a compassionate self-reflection that invites me into the goodness of my humanity.

A Practice in Compassionate Self-Reflection

Here is a gentle embodiment practice for practicing self-reflection in a era of self-critique. I invite you to take what works for you and disregard what doesn’t feel helpful.

As always, consent is key.

• Settle into Warmth: Find a comfortable seat. If you can, wrap yourself in a blanket or grab a warm cup of tea or coffee to hold. Feel the weight of the blanket on your shoulders or the heat of the mug in your hands. Take one deep, slow breath in, and let it all the way out.

• Begin with Gentle Awareness: Close your eyes, or soften your gaze toward the floor, wall, or window. Bring your awareness to your feet. Just notice them. Are they cold? Warm? Tense? Relaxed? You don’t need to change anything you find. Simply greet whatever is there with a mental, “I see you.”

• Move with Compassion: Slowly, allow your awareness to drift upward through your body. Notice your legs, your hips, the weight of your body in the chair. Notice your stomach, your chest, and the rise and fall of your breath. As sensations, anxieties, or thoughts arise, just observe them as you would observe clouds passing in the sky. There is no need to judge them, analyze them, or fix them.

• Arrive at Acceptance: Continue this gentle scan up through your shoulders, your arms, your neck, and your face. Notice any tension in your jaw or forehead, and just meet it with your awareness. Your only task is to notice what is already here, with kindness.

• A Final Breath of Being: Take one more deep breath, and as you exhale, let go of the focused attention. For just a moment, allow yourself to sit in the simple, whole state of being.

This physical act of noticing, without the mandate to change, is the very essence of compassionate reflection.

The revolutionary feeling that is replacing the old anxiety is one of quiet contentment. There is a profound peace in the stillness of winter, in the tree that is not striving to bud, in the frozen earth that is not hurrying toward the thaw. It is simply resting, gathering strength in the quiet dark.

Perhaps we can offer ourselves the same grace. To reflect not for the sake of radical change, but for the sake of radical acceptance. To look inward and find that, for today, in this season, nothing needs to be fixed.

I am content simply being me. And that, I think, is the deepest rest of all.

Your dignity matters—always.

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The pressure is on, isn’t it?

As the calendar turns, a cultural mandate arrives.

It tells us to audit our lives, find our flaws, and create a list of ways we need to be better.

For many of us, especially those healing from high-control environments, this season can bring a quiet sense of dread.

The language of resolutions, the overnight motivation for drastic and radical transformation, self-discipline, and starting with a “clean slate” can feel eerily similar to the performance-based worthiness we are deconstructing or have left behind.

The “be better” mantra lands in the body with a familiar tightness because it’s built on the same logic that high-control systems use.

It suggests:

• Your worth is conditional.

• You are a problem to be fixed.

• Rest is laziness, and striving is righteousness.

If this time of year feels heavy for you, I want to validate that experience completely.

You are not “doing it wrong.”

You are having a wise, protective response to a system that often prioritizes performance over presence.

I’ve felt this even more acutely since moving to the north. There’s a wisdom in the season itself that pushes back against the demand to hustle.

Even though we’re past the solstice and the light is slowly returning, the darker and colder days still invites me into a different rhythm.

This almost ancestral part of me nudges me back to slumber. It is longing for warmth, nourishing stews, deep rest, and quiet connection.

Our bodies seem to remember that this isn’t the season for the frantic energy of spring; it’s the season for the quiet insulation of snow and the wisdom of hibernation.

What if, this year, you could lovingly decline the invitation to fix yourself?

What if you could approach this threshold not as a performance review, but as a gentle intention to return to yourself?

The Shift from Cage to Compass

A few years ago, I realized that traditional resolution culture was, for me, an annual dignity violation.

It started from a place of deficit, demanding I betray my body’s wisdom for an idealized, often arbitrary, outcome.

The most powerful shift I made was to release the word “resolution” and gently pick up the word “intention.”

This is more than semantics; it’s a profound shift in how you relate to yourself.

• Resolutions are rigid commands. They are pass/fail and rooted in a sense of lack. (“I will lose 15 pounds.”) They are a cage.

• Gentle Intentions are flexible questions. They are guided by curiosity and rooted in your inherent wholeness. (“How can I move and nourish my body in ways that feel joyful?”) They are a compass.

One of my intentions this year includes:

Wander the Wilderness. I love the great outdoors here and there are lots of rivers and streams I want to get to know better. There isn’t a defined metric I can use for success here, because I have a relationship with the wilderness, not a contract.

Resolutions often lead us to shame when we slip up.

Intentions lead to discovery, regardless of the outcome.

A Gentle Practice to Begin

Before looking forward, let’s honor where we are right now.

This is a practice in grounding ourselves in what is already wise and true.

As always, you are welcome to particpate in as much or as little as feels safe to you.

Consent is key.

I call this practice the “Enough List.”

Find a quiet moment. Grab a journal or a scrap of paper.

1. Title it: “My ‘Enough’ List for the Past Year.”

2. Gently reflect and jot down a few things. Small moments are deeply welcome here.

   • A moment you were kind to yourself when it was hard.

   • A boundary you set, no matter how small.

   • A time you rested, even when you felt you “should” be productive.

   • A truth you learned about yourself.

3. When you’re done, read over your list. Place a hand on your chest. Take one slow, deliberate breath. Let the reality of your own resilience land in your body.

You begin this year not from a deficit, but from this place of profound wholeness.

Your Invitation to a Deeper Practice

This practice of creating an “Enough List” is the very first step in a much deeper guide I created to support you through this season: Resolutions Without Shame: A Dignity-Based Guide to Gentle New Year Intentions.

It’s a digital workbook filled with reframes, embodied practices (like setting sensory intentions), and a “Compassion Plan” for the moments you forget—all designed to help you set gentle intentions from a place of dignity, not deficit.

One of the convictions I have for my work is that I do not want to gatekeep resources for healing, health, and wholeness. As such, I have made the guide available as “pay what you want” which means it is also completely free.

A quick note for my cherished paid subscribers: This guide along with my other resources are included in your welcome email! Thank you for your incredible support. You can find the original email in your inbox.

You can find the link to the guide in the button below:

Get The Guide Here

For this new year I want to invite you to grant yourself permission to be fully human.

To honor your body’s need for rest. To celebrate small moments of joy and to be compassionate with yourself when you forget.

These intentions are a compass, not a cage.

Your dignity matters. Always.

Mariah Carey seems to defrost a little earlier every year, doesn’t she?

And yet before the last autumn leaf has even fallen, a tidal wave of expectations can begin to build. We are told this is the season of joy, connection, and celebration.

Our local stores have holiday items for sale before Halloween. It seems that the capitalist culture is trying to deregulate us earlier and earlier in the hopes we’ll spend our money to easy our anxiety.

For many, this season is full of joy and connection. And for just as many, it’s… complicated.

If the thought of the holidays this week fills you with a quiet sense of dread, a familiar exhaustion, or a deep-seated ache of grief; if you are bracing for impact rather than opening your arms in welcome, please hear this first:

Your experience is real, and it is valid.

There is nothing wrong with you for finding this time of year difficult. T

he pressure to feel a certain way can be a heavy burden.

This post isn’t about forcing joy.

It’s about giving you tangible, gentle ways to protect your peace and stay connected to yourself amidst the beautiful, and often overwhelming, chaos of the season.

Three Steps to Keep Your Sense of Self

This is about reclaiming agency, one small choice at a time.

It’s about remembering that you are the ultimate authority on your own well-being.

1. Define Your “Enough”

The holidays are a masterclass in perceived obligation. The pressure to buy the perfect gift, attend every gathering, perform happiness, and create magical moments can be crushing.

• What if, this year, you decided what “enough” looks like for you?

  • Maybe enough is one gathering, not five.

  • Maybe enough is a thoughtful, heartfelt card instead of an expensive gift.

  • Maybe enough is simply getting through the day with your nervous system intact.

You have permission to define your own capacity. Your energy is a finite and precious resource. Spend it where it truly matters to you, not where expectation dictates.

2. The Gentle Art of the Boundary

A boundary is not a wall you build to punish others; it is a line you draw to protect your inner peace. It is one of the deepest acts of self-care. It is a declaration that your needs matter.

Boundaries can feel scary, so let’s make them practical. They can be soft and simple:

• Time Boundaries: “We’d love to come, but we can only stay for an hour.”

• Topic Boundaries: “I’d really prefer not to talk about that today. How about we catch up on [safe topic] instead?”

• Energy Boundaries: “I don’t have the bandwidth for that this year, but I’m sending you all my love.”

These sentences are complete. They do not require a lengthy defense.

Remember, “No.” is a complete sentence.

3. Find and Protect Your Anchor

In a season that can pull you in a thousand different directions, an anchor is a small, intentional practice that brings you back to yourself. It doesn’t need to be grand. It just needs to be yours.

What is one small thing that reminds you of who you are, outside of all the roles you play?

• Is it the first cup of tea in the morning, before anyone else is awake?

• Is it a 10-minute walk, just to feel the cold air on your face?

• Is it a specific playlist that grounds you?

• Is it five minutes of journaling to untangle your thoughts?

Identify your anchor and invite it show up when you need it.

It is your moment of return to self.

An Invitation: A Moment to Ground Yourself

When you feel the swirl of overwhelm—the noise, the lights, the conversation, the internal pressure—here is a gentle embodiment practice to find yourself.

You are welcome to practice this or not, feel free to skip over this part if it doesn’t feel safe in your body. As always, consent is key.

• Step 1: Wherever you are—seated or standing—press your feet gently into the ground. Really feel the points of contact. Notice the texture of your socks or the firmness of your shoes.

• Step 2: Take one slow breath in, and as you breathe out, imagine you are releasing just 10% of the tension in your shoulders and jaw.

• Step 3: Take a second slow breath, and as you breathe out, allow your shoulders to drop a little further away from your ears.

• Step 4: Take a third slow breath, filling your stomach. As you exhale, just notice the sensation of being in your body, right here, right now.

This isn’t about making the hard feelings go away.

It is simply a way to interrupt the spiral and remind your nervous system that you are physically present and safe in this moment.

Navigating this season is a deeply personal journey.

You get to decide what you need, what you can offer, and where you need to retreat. There is no one right way to do it.

I want to invite you to be gentle with yourself.

I want to encourage you by saying, “You are doing the best you can with what you have.”

Wishing you moments of quiet, clarity, and a deep, unwavering sense of your own self.

Your dignity matters—always.

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One of the more disorienting wounds of high-control religious systems is having your deepest pain met with an ideological platitude. (I say ideological rather than theological because nothing about these are holy).

You come forward with a story of grief, betrayal, or confusion, your body humming with the felt reality of your suffering. In return, you are handed a neatly packaged spiritual slogan:

• “Everything happens for a reason.”

• “Just choose joy.”

• “god won’t give you more than you can handle.”

The message, whether spoken or implied, is clear: your difficult human emotions are a spiritual problem to be solved, not a reality to be held.

This is spiritual bypassing.

And if you’ve ever felt dismissed, invalidated, or even shamed by it, you are not imagining things.

Naming this tactic is how we begin to reclaim our embodied reality.

A Note Before You Begin

This post discusses the way some religious beliefs can be used to disconnect us from our bodies and our emotional and spiritual pain.

Your safety and agency are what matter most.

• You are in charge here. Pause, save this for later, or step away at any time. Your pace is the right pace.

• Take only what resonates. Skim the headings. If a section feels too activating, you have permission to skip it.

• Trust your body. If you feel your shoulders tightening or your breath becoming shallow, listen to that. As Hillary McBride teaches, these are not signs of weakness, but signals from a body trying to keep you safe.

What is Spiritual Bypassing?

Spiritual bypassing is the use of religious beliefs, language, and practices to sidestep or avoid complex human emotions and psychological needs.

As author Anna Clark Miller notes in The Religious Trauma Survival Guide, it’s a pattern of sidestepping emotionally complex issues with “simple spiritualizations.”

The intention is often to offer comfort or perspective.

The impact, however, is the profound invalidation of our very real need to feel seen, heard, and respected.

In high-control systems, this isn’t just an accidental habit; it’s a feature.

Spiritual bypassing functions as a powerful, albeit subtle, tactic of control.

It teaches you that certain feelings—anger, grief, doubt, fear—are marks of spiritual immaturity.

It implicitly creates a hierarchy of acceptable expressions of emotions, and in doing so, it trains you to suppress, deny, and dissociate from your own authentic, human experience.

What Spiritual Bypassing Sounds Like

It often comes disguised as wisdom or encouragement.

It’s the constant pressure to find a silver lining, to dismiss the messiness of being human in exchange for false appearance of piety.

• When you are grieving a loss:

  • “They’re in a better place now, so there’s no need to be sad.”

  • “Everything works together for our good.”

  • “Lay your burdens down.”

• When you are angry about injustice or abuse:

  • “You just need to forgive and forget.”

  • “Don’t let your anger cause you to sin.”

  • “We have to trust god’s plan.”

• When you are anxious or depressed:

  • “Just pray about it more.”

  • “This is a spiritual attack; you need to have more faith.”

  • “Let go and let god.”

• When you are questioning or doubting:

  • “Don’t lean on your own understanding.”

  • “god works in mysterious ways.”

  • “Doubt is a sign of a weak spirit.”

The underlying message of all these phrases is the same: Your present reality is not as important as the religious ideal you should be aspiring to.

(Bonus thought: I think “should” is a bad word. Please don’t allow anyone to should on you and try not to should on yourself.)

The Impact: A Discipleship into Disembodiment

The most devastating consequence of spiritual bypassing is that it severs you from your own body.

Hillary McBride emphasizes in The Wisdom of Your Body that our mental well-being and bodily condition are an “indivisible whole.”

Your body is constantly communicating with you:

• That knot in your stomach when a leader speaks.

• The tension in your shoulders during a service.

• The shallow breathing when you feel judged.

• The chronic fatigue or unexplained pain that doctors can’t find a cause for.

These are not random malfunctions; they are alarm signals.

They are, as discussed in The Religious Trauma Survival Guide, your nervous system’s way of telling you that you are not safe.

Spiritual bypassing trains you to systematically override these signals.

It teaches you to treat your body as a deceptive or untrustworthy source of information.

You learn to silence the physical feelings associated with your experiences, labeling them as “lack of faith” or “spiritual weakness.”

This has the potential to lead to religious trauma and get stored in our bodies.

• The anxiety your mind has been taught to suppress lives on as chronic pain.

• The grief you weren’t allowed to process manifests as digestive issues.

• The rage you couldn’t express becomes tension headaches you can’t ignore. (And as my therapist told me last week, “Rage can be the body’s way of saying ‘someone violated my dignity.’”)

Spiritual bypassing doesn’t resolve pain; it just forces your body to bear the burden of it in silence.

A Gentle Embodiment Practice

If reading this has stirred something in your body, that makes sense.

You are remembering.

If it feels safe to do so, I want to invite you into a gentle embodiment practice. If this doesn’t feel good, right, or safe, please feel free to skip it.

As always, consent is key.

1. Feel Your Support. Notice the surface beneath you—the chair, the floor. Feel it holding you completely. You don’t have to hold yourself up. Let it take your weight.

2. Find a Soothing Texture. Gently touch an object nearby—a smooth stone, the fabric of your shirt, a cool mug. Focus on the physical sensation of that object for three full breaths.

3. Initiate a Body Dialogue. Place one hand on your chest and one on your stomach. Close your eyes if that feels safe. Silently or in a whisper, ask your body: “What do you need to hear right now?” Trust the first answer that arises. It might be a word, a feeling, or an image.

4. Offer a Kind Word. Respond to your body with a simple affirmation, like “I’m here with you,” or “We can go slowly,” or “I am listening now.”

Moving from Bypassing to Integration

Reclaiming your wholeness is not about rejecting spirituality; it’s about integrating it with your full humanity.

It’s the courageous work of trusting that your body and your spirit are not at odds with each other.

Here are a few steps to begin that journey:

• Name the Bypass: When you hear a platitude, silently name it for what it is: “That is spiritual bypassing.” This act of naming creates a small space of awareness. It exercises your right to hermeneutical justice—the right to have the words for your experience.

• Honor the Body’s “No”: Instead of overriding physical signs of stress, become curious. When your stomach clenches, pause and ask, “What is this feeling trying to tell me?” This shifts the goal from suppression to connection.

• Practice “Both/And” Thinking: High-control systems thrive on either/or. Integration thrives on both/and. Give yourself permission to hold two things at once.

  • “I can be heartbroken and hold onto hope.”

  • “I can be angry at this system and still value my spiritual connection.”

  • “I can feel immense doubt and still be on a journey of faith.”

• Develop a Self-Support Mantra: As McBride suggests, create a personal affirmation to counter the bypassing messages. Instead of “Let go and let god,” perhaps your mantra is, “I navigate challenges with grace and self-compassion,” or “I am allowed to feel this fully.” Repeat it when you feel the pressure to suppress your experience.

You were taught that your humanity was a liability to your wholeness.

The truth is, your humanity is the very ground where inherent goodness is found.

• Your tears are not a lack of faith; they are a gift.

• Your anger at injustice is not what the church would call a ‘sin’; it is the echo of a an embodied heartbeat.

• Your questions are not rebellion; they are the meaningful work of returning home to yourself.

Your experience is real.

Your perception is trustworthy.

Your dignity—in all its messy, embodied, human goodness—matters. Always.

Hello everyone,

During this time of year, many of us are navigating a complex season of joy, memory, and profound loss. I recently had the honor of leading a community memorial service, and I was moved to share the words from that gathering with you here.

Below, you will find the full text of that reflection. If you prefer to listen, you can press play on the audio version above.

My hope is that these words might serve as a quiet space for you to sit, to breathe, and to honor your own journey with grief, wherever you may be. Settle in, and receive these words as they are intended: as a gentle companion on your journey.

A Welcome to You

It is both a heavy and tender honor to share this space with you today. Simply showing up—simply being here to read these words—takes courage, and I want to begin by acknowledging that.

For many of us, the holiday season brings a complicated mix of joy and sadness, of cherished memories and palpable absence. This is a space for however you are feeling, and that is my deepest hope for our time together.

I want to extend my welcome to you, exactly as you are. Whether you are here with a heart full of sorrow, quiet numbness, or even a sense of peace, you are in the right place. Our culture often rushes past the realities of death and the journey of grief, and today, there is no rush. We will simply be present with one another, united in this profound, human experience of loss.

Please know that this is a space of agency and permission. There is no right or wrong way to feel. If you find you need to cry, or not cry; to pause your reading for a moment, or to simply sit and take some deep breaths, please feel the freedom to care for yourself in whatever way serves you best.

You are seen, you are welcome, and you are not alone.

A moment for quiet reflection.

A Reflection on Grief

One of the most challenging things about grief is that it’s unique to each of us. It’s like a fingerprint—no two experiences of grief are alike. For some, the loss was sudden, a disorienting shock to the system. For others, it came at the end of a long journey of subtle losses, a slow and sacred process of letting go.

However your story shows up today, your experience is valid. Your grief, however it shows up, is normal.

I often think of grief as a weight we learn to carry. At first, it can feel like a heavy, unmanageable ball that sits in our hearts. This weight isn’t the replacement for the one we cherish, but it lives next to that space—a cavern that no other person, place, or thing can ever satisfy. And that is okay. That heavy space is a testament to the love that was, and still is, very real.

The weight of this grief can feel heavier on certain days—birthdays, anniversaries, and days like these in the holiday season. The days of heavier grief don’t mean we are moving backward; it just means the love is being remembered.

The beautiful, hard truth about this weight that lives in us is that it may not ever get smaller. But we learn to grow. We learn to grow bigger around it. Our capacity for life, for compassion, for new joys, expands. We learn to carry the weight with a strength we didn’t know we had. It becomes part of us, not as a wound that never heals, but as a deep, internal presence that reminds us of the possibility of profound connection.

Living here in the Mission Valley, we understand the seasons. We know the sharp, bitter cold of winter is inevitable. We know about the snow that showed up and left and might return again. We know about the suddenness of a summer thunderstorm and the quiet stillness of an inversion. Grief is much the same—it has its own seasons, its own unpredictable weather patterns.

And you, and your grief, you are not the storm. You are the sky above it that holds all of it—the clouds, the rain, the stillness, and the brilliant sun that eventually breaks through.

You are the constant presence that witnesses the ever-changing weather of your heart.

A Moment of Stillness

I would now like to invite you into a shared moment of silence. This is a time to remember, to reflect, or to simply be still.

As we enter this quiet space, I offer a gentle practice that grounds us to this moment. This is only an invitation, so please only participate if it feels comfortable and right for you.

• If you’d like, you can allow your eyes to gently close or simply soften your gaze in front of you.

• Bring your awareness to the points of contact your body is making. Maybe you can feel the support of the chair beneath you, holding you.

• Perhaps you can notice the feeling of your feet resting on the floor, connecting you to the earth beneath the building.

• You might even rest a hand on your heart or in your lap, simply feeling the gentle weight and warmth of your own touch.

This is a way to anchor ourselves in this present moment, a reminder that we are here, held and supported, even with the swirling currents of memory and grief.

Take a few quiet breaths here before continuing.

A moment for quiet reflection.

A Closing Blessing

As we bring this time to a close, we are reminded that even in the deepest quiet, a small light can bring warmth and presence. Each flame represents a life, a memory, a love that continues to burn brightly in our hearts and minds.

The path of grief can feel lonely, especially as we head into the quiet months of winter. But as you read this, I hope you feel a sense of shared humanity. We are walking this well-worn path alongside one another.

There isn’t a shortcut through grief, and I wish I could take away the heartache of this journey for you. But what I can offer is this: the legacy of your beloved is honored every single day. It’s honored when you wake up and face the day. It’s honored in a quiet moment of memory, in the telling of a favorite story, in the simple, courageous act of continuing to live and love.

May you be gentle with yourselves this holiday season. May you find moments of peace amid the pain, and may you feel the enduring presence of the love you carry.

Thank you for sharing this space.

With deep care,

Andrew

P.S. If it feels right for you, feel free to share the name of a person you are holding in your heart in the comments below. We can create a quiet, digital vigil of remembrance together.

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It is wintertime here in Montana and most mornings begin with a thick inversion layer (also known as fog). It can make driving along even familiar roads a bit sketchy.

The fog of the “real world” isn’t the only type of fog survivors of spiritual abuse (myself included) experience. There is a deeper, language based fog that is cultivated by high-control religious systems systems. And that is what we are exploring today.

Have you ever tried to describe a feeling, a memory, a deep and unsettling wrongness, but the words just weren’t there?

It’s like shouting into the void without an ear to hear you. You feel the truth of your experience vibrating in your bones, but you don’t have the words to say.

You search your mind for a word, a phrase, a category, a concept that fits, but you come up empty.

And in that silence, a terrifying question begins to whisper:

• Maybe it wasn’t real.

• Maybe I’m the problem.

• Maybe I’m just crazy.

If that feeling is familiar, I want you to know three things:

• You are not crazy.

• I believe you.

• And you are not alone.

There is a name for this intellectual and emotional suffocation. It’s a concept that, for me, was like a key turning in a lock I didn’t even know was there.

It’s called hermeneutical injustice.

The Power of a Name

In my post, The Playbook of Control, I touched on this as part of Information Control. But it deserves its own space, its own light.

Hermeneutical injustice is what happens when a system denies you the interpretive tools to understand your social experiences.

It’s not just that key information was withheld; it’s that they actively prevent you from developing the very language needed to name your reality.

The words, concepts, and frameworks that could help you identify harm are demonized, dismissed, or simply hidden from view.

You are left in a fog of unknowing, suffering in a silence imposed upon you.

For years, I had a Sunday ritual I couldn’t explain.

Every Sunday, without fail, I would come home after church, collapse into bed, and sleep for at least two hours. I told myself a neat, tidy story about it: it was just that I was introverted and needed to recover.

“Of course I’m tired,” I’d reason. “All that socializing just drains me. This is how I recharge.”

It made perfect sense. It was a story my mind could accept.

But the exhaustion wasn’t just from the small talk in the lobby or the turn-and-shake-hands-time. It was from the silent war being waged on the people in the pews. I remember sitting there, bracing myself for the 25-plus minute sermon, and finding myself internally disagreeing. For those who sat near me, they know that this sometimes sounded like a small scoff, usually in disagreement with how a passage was being interpreted and applied.

I would write notes in the margins of the sacred text and the fill-in-the-blank printed notes I would be wrestling with how to integrate dehumanizing ideologies rooted in these sacred texts when everything inside me wanted to embody love and kindness toward myself and others.

I’d reflect on books and commentaries I’d read that offered a contrary position, feeling the profound dissonance of sitting in a room that demanded conformity while my mind and spirit were screaming for integrity and dignity.

It wasn’t until years later, long after I’d left, that the fog began to lift. I could finally give a new name to the ‘Sunday Crash. It wasn’t an “introvert hangover.”

It was nervous system fatigue.

It was the profound exhaustion that comes from having your nervous system on high alert, bracing against harmful ideology while simultaneously trying to manage a deep ethical and intellectual conflict.

My mind didn’t have the words for it then—words like dignity violation or moral injury, spiritual abuse—so it defaulted to a story it did have: “I’m an introvert.”

And my body knew the truth all along. The exhaustion was its wisdom. The nap wasn’t a quirk; it was recovery.

Curiosity as Courage

In these environments, intellectual curiosity is not a virtue; it is a threat. It’s labeled as “pride,” a “rebellious spirit,” or “leaning on your own understanding.”

Why is it a threat? Because the moment you pick up an outside book on psychology, listen to a podcast about abusive and narcissistic leaders and systems, or simply read an article like this one, you are giving yourself new language. You are finding new ways to describe your lived social experiences.

This journey of discovery can feel like an act of betrayal. You can feel the old programming kick in, warning you that this new knowledge is “secular,” “deceptive,” or “worldly.”

Those are the key-words that the high-control system uses, designed to keep you from finding the very tools that will help you cultivate the person you are longing to become.

I want to reframe that feeling for you: Your curiosity is not betrayal. It is a profound act of courage.

It is the first, tender step toward reclaiming your own mind. It is your inherent dignity demanding to be witnessed and known, not by a system, but by you.

A Gentle Embodiment Practice

If this is stirring something in you, let’s pause. Your safety is what matters most. If it feels okay and safe to you, join me in this gentle practice. As always, consent is key.

• Wherever you are, just let your eyes close for a moment, or soften your gaze on a point in front of you.

• Listen. Don’t strain, just notice the sounds in your environment. The hum of a fan. A distant car. The sound of your own quiet breath. Name one sound silently to yourself.

• Now, feel. Notice one point of contact your body is making. Your feet on the floor. Your back against the chair. The weight of your hands in your lap.

• Place a hand gently over your chest. Whisper to yourself, “My experience is real.”

• Stay here for two more breaths. Then, when you’re ready, slowly open your eyes.

Rebuilding Your Interpretive Toolkit

The fog of hermeneutical injustice lifts one word at a time. The healing isn’t about finding labels to carry, but light to see what’s been hidden. If you are looking for gentle ways to begin rebuilding your own interpretive toolkit, here are some invitations.

Take only what feels right, at a pace that honors you.

Read Freely: Novels and poetry are powerful tools for empathy. They allow you to step into another’s inner world, giving you new language for complex emotions and relationships that you may recognize in your own story.

• My current reading (or audiobook listening) is Sex, Death, and Fly Fishing by John Gierach

Explore Psychology and Sociology: Learning the basics of attachment theory, trauma, and group dynamics can provide immense clarity. You can name and see the blueprint, and you realize it wasn’t a personal failure. It was a pattern.

Books like:

• When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion by Laura E. Anderson.

• The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection Through Embodied Living by Hillary L. McBride, PhD.

• Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff, PhD.

• Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion by Marlene Winell, PhD.

Listen to diverse voices. Seek out podcasts, authors, and thinkers from entirely different backgrounds. Hearing how other people make sense of the world reminds you that your former system’s interpretation was one of many, not the only one.

Practice naming your feelings. Start small. Instead of saying “I’m fine,” try to find a more specific word. “I feel quiet.” “I feel tense.” “I feel a little bit hopeful.” This is an act of mindfulness that honors the truth of your inner state.

I have this emotion sensation wheel hanging on my fridge.

Whether it is a book, podcast, this Substack, or a simple chart, each new tool help you do the work of coming home to yourself.

This is the work of coming home to yourself. It is the slow, sacred process of learning to trust your own mind and body again, of finding the words that match the knowing in your bones.

It wasn’t your fault that you were lost in the fog.

Your experience is real. Your perception is trustworthy.

Your dignity matters — always.

Content and Trigger Warning: As I was creating the video for this piece, the editing software’s AI-automatic scanner flagged quotes I read from pastors in pulpits as violating community guidelines against “self-harm.”

It’s a stark reminder that this language is not benign.

The fact that it is common in pulpits is the very reason this conversation is so necessary. Please take care of yourself as you read and give yourself permission to disengage at any point.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll continue to explore this theme.

To support this journey, I’ve poured my research and practice into a new guide called “Resolutions Without Shame,” which is now available as an included resource to all my paid subscribers, and I’ll be sharing more about it next week.

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Does the phrase “New Year, New You” land like a shock wave in your nervous system?

I remember it so clearly: sitting in the cushioned rows of a church in Washington, a few days into a new year. The sermon was a distasteful blend of secular ambition and sacred texts. The familiar buzz of “New Year, New You” capitalism (normally seen in gym ads and diet commercials) was being repackaged from the pulpit, seamlessly woven into verses like, “Behold, I am making all things new.”

It was the same energy that fueled the annual “21-day fasts” which were promoted as spiritual disciplines, but with a knowing wink and a subtle nod toward the waistline.

For many of us, especially those who have survived high-control environments, this season doesn’t feel like a fresh start.

It feels like a performance review we are doomed to fail. It arrives with a quiet, familiar dread.

Is that your experience this year? If so, you are not alone. And there is a very good reason for that feeling.

It’s a pattern of control.

In a previous post, The Playbook of Control, I named this tactic:

Imposed Identity & The Erasure of Self.

The playbook describes it this way: The ultimate goal of a high-control system is not merely to control your behavior, but to dismantle your authentic self and replace it with a new, system-approved identity.

For those of us who grew up in high-control theological frameworks, this language is pervasive. Does any of this sound familiar?

• “You must abandon yourself.”

• “Put to death the old person and sinful ways.”

• “Become a new creation.”

In these systems, the self was not someone to be known, trusted, or integrated. It was the enemy. Your thoughts, feelings, and desires were deemed untrustworthy.

Your very being was a ‘before’ picture, waiting to be annihilated so a more acceptable ‘after’ could take its place.

This is the ideology of Self-Erasure.

When we see it mirrored in the culture, especially in the “New Year, New You” marketing narrative our bodies remember. Our nervous systems recognize the pattern.

The message, whether from a pulpit or a marketing ad, is the same: You, as you are right now, are not enough. You must be replaced.

This is a quiet violence against the self. It severs the sacred trust you have with your own body and your own experience. It reinforces the all-or-nothing, pass/fail thinking that high-control systems thrive on.

It suggests that growth is not about integration, but removal.

The new year does not have to launch an unsustainable sprint to change who you are.

What if you don’t need to be erased?

What if the parts of you that feel messy or broken are not shameful flaws to be destroyed, but tender messengers asking for your attention? What if growth isn’t about becoming a “new you,” but about having the courage to finally come home to the you that has been there all along?

Instead of performance-based resolutions, we can lean into gentle intentions. Intentions rooted in self-compassion and a deep honoring of our shared humanity.

When we accept that struggling, faltering, and feeling tender are universal human experiences—not personal, moral failures—we can let go of the shame that isolates us.

We no longer carry the heavy burden of pass/fail resolutions, which is the exact same type of performance-based religiosity so many of us endured in high-control systems.

When we move toward our intentions with self-compassion, change happens.

Not through erasure, but through integration.

Not through shame, but through safety.

Your anxiety is not a character flaw to be removed. It is a part of you, holding a story, likely trying to keep you safe.

Your sadness is not a sin. It is a testament to your ability to love and to lose.

Your exhaustion is not laziness. It is a wise signal from a body that has carried too much for too long.

We do not need to perform a self-renovation project for public approval.

We need to practice a gentle return to our own sacred, inherent, and permanent wholeness.

An Embodiment Practice: The Compassionate Noticing

This is a practice of shifting from judgment to watching. It’s a way to listen to yourself instead of trying to fix yourself.

Consent is Key. If this practice doesn’t feel safe or welcome, please feel free to move on. Find a quiet moment. Sit or lie down in a comfortable position. You can close your eyes if that feels safe.

1. Place a hand on your chest and a hand on your stomach. This provides a gentle, physical anchor to the present moment. Take three slow, soft breaths. No need to force them.

2. Ask a gentle question. Instead of asking, “What’s wrong with me?” or “What do I need to change?” silently ask your body: “What is here right now?”

3. Simply name it. Without judgment, just notice what arises. Anxiety is here. Sadness is here. A flutter of hope is here. Numbness is here. Tiredness is here. You don’t have to do anything about it. The goal is not to change the feeling, but to acknowledge its presence with gentleness. You are simply letting yourself be seen, by you.

4. Breath and Gratitude. Take one more breath and offer gratitude to your body for its honest communication.

You are not a problem to be solved; you are someone to be known, trusted, and integrated.

The pressure to become a “New You” is a myth rooted in systems that profit from your self-abandonment. You are not a ‘before’ picture. You are a whole person, right now, in this moment. Your worth is inherent and permanent.

Let us move in a way where we can shift away from the rigid cage of resolutions and toward the gentle compass of our own sacred intentions.

You deserve to approach the turning of the calendar with dignity, not dread.

Over the next few weeks, we’ll continue to explore this theme.

To support this journey, I’ve poured my research and practice into a new guide called “Resolutions Without Shame,” which is now available as an included resource to all my paid subscribers, and I’ll be sharing more about it next week.

Subscribe now

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I remember some of my first trips home from college for the holidays. Thanksgiving was always special, marked by our family recounting the lore of a secret Chestnut stuffing recipe. It was usually a debate over how old the recipe was and how much wine is supposed to go into it.

While I had only been gone for a few months, my world had shifted dramatically. I was reading philosophy, getting my major sorted, living with roommates who challenged my worldview, and slowly, tentatively, building a new version of myself.

And then I walked through my grandparents’ door.

Almost instantly, without conscious thought, the person I was becoming was gone.

The new, questioning, expanding version of myself vanished. In his place was a prior self—a younger, more agreeable self from high school.

My voice got a little higher and more rambunctious. I found myself talking about the high-school days, recounting stories and “where are they now?” questions with friends, and as the years went on, I struggled to remember the same old jokes.

I became a carefully curated, two-dimensional version of myself, designed for maximum harmony.

I was performing a role I knew I needed to outgrow. The sensation of enduring this personality whiplash was staggering.

The pain felt like self-betrayal. Each visit home a noticeable measurement between who I was becoming and who I was expected to be.

This is the Holiday Reversion.

And if you’ve felt it, you are not alone. It’s the invisible price of admission many of us pay to keep our seat at the table, especially if your family operates within a high-control dynamic that no longer resonates with you.

This experience is a classic double bind. As I wrote in The Playbook of Control, this is the quintessential “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario that many of us face as the holidays approach.

Applied to the holiday table, the double bind can look like this:

The Authenticity Bind

You are told, “Be yourself! We love you for you,” but when you express an opinion that differs from the family consensus, especially around politics, religion, or lifestyle, you are subversively punished with silence, overtly punished with argument, or the label of being “divisive.”

Self-damned if you’re fake; family-damned if you’re real.

My reversion to a “high school self” was a preemptive surrender to this bind.

Gaslighting: The Engine Behind the Reversion

The double bind is so effective because it is enforced by gaslighting—the systematic erosion of your reality. When your entire body is screaming “I don’t agree with this,” but the room demands a performance of happy belonging, you are taught to betray your internal knowing.

To me, it feels like little stress fractures on the soul.

Hillary L. McBride argues in The Wisdom of Your Body that our mental and bodily well-being are an “indivisible whole.”

The tension headache that arrives with the guests, the stomach that churns during a certain conversation—these are not random symptoms.

They are data. They are truth-tellers.

It is the body’s protection mechanism, the same one that used to give me migraines before every “all-staff meeting” at a high-control organization. But in a system that prioritizes the illusion of harmony over the reality of its members, you are taught to silence that data.

The Holiday Reversion is the act of silencing your own evolution for the comfort of the system.

A Gentle Embodiment Practice

If this story stirs something in your body, that makes sense. It remembers. If it feels safe, let’s embrace a gentle embodiment practice.

Consent is key. If this exercise does not feel safe in your body, you may stop at any time and move on.

Let’s Anchor:

1. Place one hand over your chest and one over your stomach. Close your eyes if that feels comfortable.

2. Feel the warmth of your hands. Feel the gentle rise and fall of your current, adult self, breathing right here, right now.

3. Silently, or in a soft whisper, say this phrase: “I am here now. This version of me is real.”

4. Say it again. Notice what it feels like in your body to validate the person you are today.

5. Ask your body: What is one thing you need to feel present and safe right now? It might be a deep breath, a sip of water, or the feeling of your feet on the floor. Trust the first answer you feel.

The Goal is Not to Win; It’s to Stay Present

The path forward is not about preparing for a dramatic confrontation. It is not your job to force your family to see the “new you.” The most important person to care for is yourself.

A possible goal this season: navigate these gatherings without abandoning yourself.

This might look like:

• Catching the Reversion: Simply noticing the impulse to change. Perhaps you notice your urge to edit a story. You can say to yourself, “Ah, there it is. The old role. I see it. I can make a different choice.”

• Allowing for “Quiet Presence”: You don’t have to perform. It’s okay to be quieter than you used to be. Your calm, observant presence is just as valid as cheerful participation.

• Redefining a “Successful” Holiday: Success is not a conflict-free dinner where you played your part perfectly. Success is ending the day knowing you honored the person you are today. Success is staying connected to the wisdom of your body.

• You are not too sensitive: You are not “ruining things” by changing. The discomfort you feel is the friction of your own growth, and that growth is something to be honored, not hidden.

Your sensitivity is not a flaw; it is a finely-tuned instrument for detecting inauthenticity. This week, I hope you are able to find a simple way to trust yourself if that felt inaccessible before.

May you find moments to honor the person you are becoming.

May you celebrate your magnificence—because you are fucking magnificent.

And may you remember that your presence, your real, authentic, evolving presence… that is enough.

You, as you are today, is enough.

My goal is to provide language for these complex, felt experiences. If this post resonated with you, I’d be honored if you would engage in one of two ways:

1. Share in the comments: What part of the “Holiday Reversion” felt most true for you?

2. Share this post: If this could help someone you know feel less alone this week, please consider sharing it with them.

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Thank you for being here.

You dignity matters. Always.

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Trigger and Content Warning: Descriptions of Harmful Theological Ideologies

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Let’s start with a revolutionary, and maybe even terrifying, idea: Trust yourself.

If you’re a survivor of high-control religious systems, that phrase isn’t just advice; it’s an act of rebellion.

And its time to be a rebel.

You were taught, explicitly, that your heart was deceitful.

That your own understanding couldn’t be trusted.

That the most dangerous thing you could possibly do is to rely on your intuition.

So when you begin to consider it now: the radical notion that you can trust yourself, it might feel less like relief and more like an exhausting internal battle.

If you know that feeling, you are not alone. And you are not broken.

The deep, lingering pain of spiritual abuse isn’t random.

It’s not a sign of your failure or lack of faith.

It’s the predictable outcome of a system that methodically undermines the very essence of who you are.

I call this a dignity violation.

I describe dignity as an inherent and permanent quality of goodness that is deserving of:

• love,

• agency,

• respect, and;

• consent.

It is not something that is earned or added on. It is yours simply because you are.

High-control systems, by their very nature, function by violating these core pillars of your personhood.

Understanding this is the first step toward reclaiming yourself.

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Spiritual Abuse as a Systematic Dignity Violation

The problem isn’t just a flawed belief; it’s that the system itself is often built to attempt to dismantle your dignity, piece by piece.

• Your Agency was deemed corrupt. Agency is the freedom to choose. Yet, you may have been taught that you “have no choice but to be in opposition to god from birth.” This harmful ideology strips you of any belief in your own positive decision-making right from the start. It grants unchecked authority to leaders and reframes your personal “yes” or “no” as an act of rebellion against god, not just a boundary with a person.

• Love was performative, not unconditional. You were promised “unconditional love,” but true love, the kind that creates safety, requires boundaries. That’s the whole point of vows or mutual commitments. In high-control contexts, this idea gets co-opted. Love and belonging become a reward for performance and compromise. You were loved if you believed the right things, behaved the right way, and stayed compliant. This turns love from a source of safety into a tool of control.

• You were shown profound disrespect. Your inner world was not honored. Sermons and teachings often used belittling and dehumanizing language. This wasn’t just for outsiders, but for you. Your doubts were muted. Your questions were evidence of arrogance. Your personal experiences were dismissed if they didn’t align with the approved doctrine. This teaches you to disrespect your own internal landscape, to treat your own thoughts and feelings with suspicion.

• Your Consent was treated as an afterthought. Purity culture is a primary example of this, where your body’s boundaries were decided for you. But it goes deeper. It’s the non-consensual imposition of values, like, in my experience, when a religious leader who says he’s “depositing theological insights into the bank of your mind” so you’ll see his way later. This isn’t a gift; it is an intellectual and spiritual trespass, communicating that your mind is a space to be colonized, not a sovereign territory to be cherished.

When you see the architecture of the harm so clearly, the confusing aftermath of leaving starts to make a startling amount of sense.

If you feel lost, anxious, or unable to make decisions: it makes sense.

• It makes sense that you doubt your own goodness when you were told your agency was corrupt from birth.

• It makes sense that you fear being “too much” or “not enough” when love was a reward for performance.

• It makes sense that you dismiss your own intuition when your inner world was consistently shown disrespect.

• It makes sense that you feel disconnected from your body and your “no” when your consent was treated as an afterthought.

You are not broken. You are a human being having a normal human reaction to a profoundly dehumanizing environment.

Your pain is a signal that your dignity was violated.

The journey forward isn’t about “fixing” your brokenness.

It’s about reclaiming the dignity that was always yours.

This untangling isn’t just an intellectual exercise.

Since the violation of your dignity taught you to disconnect from your body, the path home must lead you back into it.

A Gentle Embodiment Practice

I invite you to try this gentle practice, as an act of reclaiming your own physical space. As always, if it doesn’t feel safe yet to go here in your body, honor that. Consent is vital.

1. Pause for a moment. If it feels safe, allow your eyes to close or soften your gaze.

2. Place a hand over the center of your chest. Don’t press hard, just let its weight be known as a gesture of respect.

3. Take one slow, full breath. Feel your chest rise to meet your hand. As you exhale, imagine your shoulders dropping just a fraction.

4. Say these words, softly or just in your mind: “My body is my home. I have a right to be here.”

Take one more breath.

You have survived a system that attempted to compromise your inherent goodness. T

he journey back to yourself is a profound act of courage.

It is the ultimate reclamation of your dignity.

What is one small way you can honor your dignity today?

If today’s post resonated with you and you’re ready to go deeper, my Rediscovering Dignity eBook, is the perfect next step.

It’s a gentle, guided journey to help you feel safe in your body again. Delivered directly to your inbox.

It is included in the welcome email to all new subscribers as well as for free at the link below.

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Thank you for being a paid subscriber to Religious Trauma Sucks.

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TW/CW: Religious phrases used by high-control systems with reference to divine power, authority.

Have you ever gone to ask the religious leader a question, only to feel it die before it reached the air?

Maybe it was a doubt about a sermon, a doctrine, or a decision.

Before the thought could even form, something inside you shut down. Guilt. Fear.

The echo of familiar phrases:

• “Don’t lean on your own understanding.”

• “Pride comes before the fall.”

• “Just have more faith.”

It registered in your nervous system as rebellion. What should have felt like curiosity and understanding felt like guild and shame.

Your confusion about something wasn’t a welcome or valid response.

They framed it as spiritual failure.

So you stayed quiet.

And a part of you learned that your own mind wasn’t a safe place to live.

If this feels familiar, hear me clearly: that self-censorship wasn’t yours.

It was finely crafted, fiercely defended, and forced upon you.

There’s a name for that invisible cage: loaded language and thought-stopping clichés.

Naming it is the first step toward dismantling it.

The Architecture of the Cage

In high-control religious systems, cryptic language is used for control. Words become walls. Religious jargon and spiritualized phrases are used to stop questions before they start.

I lived this. Recently in my ministry career, I was asked to build a leadership school in a large church.

Whenever I encouraged people to think deeply or ask hard questions, I was met with:

• “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”

It sounded humble.

But in practice, it was an attempt to shutdown anything that challenged the status quo. It was a way of keeping curiosity from becoming change.

And, conveniently, it kept leadership in control.

It was often paired with the idea that our hearts were “deceptively wicked,” meaning our emotions and reasoning couldn’t be trusted.

That message does real damage.

It taught us that our intuition was dangerous and that “god’s will” (as defined by leadership) was the only safe path forward. That path usually was the one that required more unpaid hours, unquestioned loyalty, and attempts to violate our dignity.

These weren’t isolated moments. They’re part of a much bigger pattern.

A system that flattens our complex, beautiful reality into neat, pre-approved boxes.

It can look like:

• Silencing questions about suffering or injustice with “god’s ways are not our ways.”

• Protecting leaders from accountability by insisting “god anoints/appoints leaders.”

• Bypassing pain with “Let go and let god” or “Take every thought captive.”

• Labeling curiosity as pride, calling your intellect rebellion.

  ---

The Impact: An Internal Kill Switch

These phrases get under your skin. Over time, they become an internal kill switch that attempts to automatically silence your curiosity and questions.

This is the opposite of mindfulness.

True self-compassion invites you to observe your thoughts without judgment.

Thought-stoppers teach you to fear your internal dialogue or grow anxious trying to figure out which internal voice is divine and which one is a distraction.

Mystified language becomes the cage. You start avoiding nuance, complexity, contradiction, and yet that is where real growth happens.

Eventually, you can forget what it feels like to think freely, to wonder, to disagree with integrity.

Your questions were never the problem.

The system that felt threatened by them are the problem.

A Gentle Practice: Reclaiming One Thought

If this resonates with you and your experience, I am sorry. I grieve with you.

Your body might be remembering what it felt like to be silenced and diminished.

If it feels safe, let’s take one small step back toward freedom.

• Ground yourself. Feel your feet on the floor. Notice the steadiness beneath you.

• Soften your jaw. Let your tongue rest on the floor of your mouth—the place where unspoken words often live.

• Welcome one thought. Whatever shows up—big or small—let it be there without judgment.

• Say quietly: “This thought is allowed here.”

That’s it. You just practiced intellectual consent with yourself.

That is a quiet revolution.

The First Cracks of Light

Healing from thought control takes time. It is hard to overcome the feelings of guilt, shame, and rebellion. Trusting your intuition again is none of those things. It is liberation.

I hope you can find some space today to let yourself wonder again.

• Perhaps you can start with small, honest questions. “I wonder what I really think about that.”

  • Notice your internal ‘no.’ When a phrase feels off, trust that sense.

  • Your body often knows before your mind can explain.

• Consider reading what was once off-limits. Not as an act of rebellion, but to remember that you get to choose who teaches you. Perhaps reading this post is enough.

• Be patient. Rebuilding trust with your own mind is slow work. Some days curiosity will feel thrilling. Other days, terrifying. Both are holy.

Your mind is not a liability; it’s a gift.

Your curiosity is not rebellion; it’s hardwired in you, and it is a damn good thing.

The system that taught you otherwise was too small to hold the magnificent, complex, thinking-and-feeling human you’ve always been.

You get to be in charge of your own thoughts.

At your pace. On your terms. In your language.

Your dignity matters—always.

This is a VERY long post. Consider saving it to come back later.

One of the deepest harms of high-control religious systems is that the language, messaging, and practices remove you from yourself and limit your thinking, leaving you unable to describe the nightmare you’re waking up from.

Naming the tactics is how the fog begins to lift.

This post offers language. Not as labels to carry, but as light to see what’s been hidden for too long.

If you’ve ever felt broken, defective, or alone know that the system was built to keep you unsteady.

Here is what I want to offer:

You are not alone.

Healing is possible.

A Note Before You Begin

This is a long and detailed post that names specific tactics of high-control systems.

Your safety and consent are what matter most.

• You are in charge of your pace. Pause, save this for later, or step away at any time.

• Take only what you need. Skim the headings and read only what feels relevant.

• Trust your body. If you feel yourself getting activated, listen. Feel your feet on the floor. Look around the room. Breathe.

You are not broken. You are healing.

The Tactics of Control

The perpetrators in these systems live somewhere on a spectrum between knowingly harming you and mindlessly being formed exactly how the system wants them to be.

These sorts of patterns are seen across authoritarian systems — religious, political, relational, and familial.

When you start to see the blueprint, you begin to realize it wasn’t your failure.

You were being conditioned.

1. Information Control & Hermeneutical Injustice

In a high-control environments, the leadership positions itself as the gatekeeper of truth.

By systematically devaluing all outside information, the group engineers a state of dependence on them and prevents you from acquiring the language to name your own experiences.

• Information control can look like:

  • Actively demonizing psychology and therapy as “secular” or “worldly,” thereby cutting you off from the very tools that could help you identify manipulation, trauma, and coping skills.

  • Insisting that inspiration comes only from god to the leaders, meaning any external book, podcast, or teacher is a potential source of “deception.”

  • Discrediting former attendees by labeling them as “offended,” “bitter,” or “divisive,” ensuring their testimony is invalidated and silenced before it can ever be heard.

  • Reducing outsiders to spiritual projects (”crops to be harvested”) or threats (”unequally yoked”), which strips them of their shared humanity and isolates you from genuine, non-transactional relationships.

• The impact of this tactic is intellectual suffocation known as hermeneutical injustice.
  
  This is what happens when you are denied the interpretive tools of your experience.
  
  The concepts, words, frameworks are hidden, leaving you to suffer in silence.
  
  When your pain has no name, you are led to believe it isn’t real or that you are the cause of it.
  
  This prevents you from recognizing our shared humanity in your struggle, often leading to deep feelings of isolation and loneliness.
  
  Your world shrinks until curiosity feels like betrayal, and the system becomes your only mirror.
  
  You forget that wisdom can be found in many places, and the open air of intellectual freedom begins to feel like a terrifying void.

2. Loaded Language & Thought-Stoppers

High-control groups rely on specialized vocabulary of religious jargon and spiritual clichés designed to shut down critical thinking before it can form.

These phrases flatten complex human experiences into pre-approved, pacified, unquestionable categories, making curiosity feel dangerous.

• Loaded language can look like:

  • “don’t lean on your own understanding” or “god’s ways aren’t our ways” to dismiss legitimate questions about suffering, injustice, politics, or logical incongruences in doctrine or religious texts.

  • Employing slogans like “god places people into leadership” to shield pastors from accountability and frame any challenge to their authority as an attack on god, the church, or doctrines.

  • Responding to emotional pain with directives to “let go and let god” or to “take every thought captive,” which spiritually bypasses the need for genuine emotional processing.

  • Labeling critical thinking as “pride” or a “rebellious spirit,” thereby equating intellectual honesty with “sin.”

• The impact of this tactic is a conditioned intellectual paralysis.

The thought-stopping cliché acts as an internal kill switch for curiosity.

This is the antithesis of mindfulness—a core component of self-compassion (see Neff’s work below)—which asks us to observe our thoughts and feelings without judgment.

Instead, loaded language teaches you to instantly judge and suppress any thought or feeling that deviates from the group’s script.

Language ceases to be a tool for exploration and becomes a cage for your mind, keeping you from the nuance, complexity, and contradiction where authentic truth often resides.

3. Fear and Shame

Fear and shame are the twin engines of high-control environments, creating invisible psychological electrical fences that enforce compliance.

These systems weaponize the fundamental human nervous-system need for safety and belonging, teaching you that both safety and belonging are conditional upon your compliance and assimilation.

• Fear and Shame can look like:

  • Employing graphic theological language, such as the ideology of total depravity or Jonathan Edwards’s imagery of god holding you like a “loathsome insect” over a burning flame, designed to evoke deep-seated shame and spiritual anguish.

  • Constant threats of relational disconnection, where you are warned that leaving the group will mean losing closeness with family, friends, and the social structure.

    • This exploits what Brené Brown identifies as the core of shame: the fear of being unworthy of connection.

  • Sharing “negative testimonies” about those who have “backslidden” or walked away, painting a narrative of misery for anyone who dares to choose a different path.

  • Publicly punishing confessions or moments of vulnerability, transforming the desire for healing into an opportunity for control and public humiliation.

• The impact of this tactic is chronic nervous system activation.
  
  The constant spiritual and relational threats keep your body locked in a trauma response—a state of fight, flight, or freeze.
  
  As Laura E. Anderson explains in When Religion Hurts You, you are living in a state of hypervigilance where your rational mind is offline.
  
  This is the direct opposite of what is required for self-compassion.
  
  You cannot practice “self-kindness” (Neff) when you are being taught you are inherently flawed and worthy of punishment.
  
  This ideology is a direct assault on humanity, replacing your inherent dignity with a pervasive sense of worthlessness.

4. Doctrine Over Dignity

This occurs when a theological system is treated as more sacred than the human beings it claims to serve.

In this moral inversion, doctrinal “purity” and systemic “rightness” are prioritized above compassion, justice, and individual well-being, framing human suffering as acceptable and guaranteed in order to discover a “deeper truth.”

• This can look like:

  • Dismissing a person’s profound marital pain by citing a rigid doctrinal stance on divorce, placing a rule above a person’s safety and sanity.

  • Refusing to re-examine harmful theological frameworks. Even when presented with evidence of the deep psychological damage they caused, because the doctrine itself is considered untouchable.

  • Reframing legitimate trauma as spiritual immaturity, a lack of faith, or a necessary part of one’s “sanctification,” which effectively blames the victim for their own suffering.

  • This can manifest is any sort of demographic of people, whether a woman being told she can’t hold a particular role in the church, a queer person not allowed in the stage band, or whatever sort of falsely contrived ideology that tries to suggest folks are sinful and incompatible with “biblical truth.” This reduction of their entire personhood down to a singular theological problem to be condemned or “fixed” is bigotry.

• The impact of this tactic is the systematic violation of your inherent dignity.
  
  Dignity is the non-negotiable, inherent worth of every person. No qualifiers.
  
  By placing doctrine over people, the system teaches you to mistrust your own empathy and sense of justice.
  
  It severs you from the “common humanity” component of self-compassion (Neff), because your pain is not seen as a valid, shared human experience but as an individual spiritual failure.
  
  It is a corrosive form of gaslighting that conditions you to believe that the system’s integrity matters more than your own.

5. Confession as Surveillance

In healthy contexts, confession is a practice of unburdening that can lead to healing and restoration.

In high-control systems, this sacred act is repurposed into a mechanism for surveillance and control.

Your vulnerability is no longer met with grace, but is instead mined for data to monitor, measure, and manage you.

• This can look like:

  • Public confession sessions where intimate struggles are exposed to the judgment of the entire group, creating shame rather than resolving it.

  • So-called “accountability partners” who function as extensions of leadership, tasked with monitoring your behavior, phone usage, finances, or adherence to purity codes.

  • Leaders who weaponize privately shared information, bringing up past sins or struggles as leverage to enforce compliance or reassert their authority.

  • A culture where privacy is seen as suspicious, and you are encouraged to “live in the light” by relinquishing all personal boundaries for the sake of group “purity.”

• The impact of this tactic is the complete erosion of psychological safety and the conditioning of a fawn response.
  
  As described in When Religion Hurts You, fawning is a trauma response where you learn to survive by “pleasing, appeasing, and submitting.”
  
  You are trained to perform an acceptable, “holy” version of yourself to avoid punishment or ostracism. This makes self-compassion impossible.
  
  You cannot be mindful of your true inner state when you are constantly curating it for an external audience, nor can you practice self-kindness (Neff) toward the parts of you that you’ve been taught must remain hidden.
  
  The very act of being known becomes dangerous, forcing you to sacrifice authenticity for the illusion of safety

BREATHE. PAUSE. REST.

You are magnificent. Never forget you are magnificent.

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6. Unquestionable Authority

This tactic concentrates all spiritual and moral authority into a single person or (a charismatic leader), a “highest governing body” (a board), or a single interpretation of a text, effectively placing them beyond reproach.

Critical thinking is relabeled as rebellion, and dissent is framed as an attack, creating a system where blind obedience is considered the highest virtue.

• This can look like:

  • A “solo heroic leader” who claims a direct and exclusive line to god, making their personal vision non-negotiable and bypassing any need for community input or accountability.

  • Using phrases like “god places people in leadership” to create a shield around leaders, making any question of their character or decisions an act of defiance against god.

  • Equating a specific, rigid interpretation of scripture with the “word of god” itself, such that to question the interpretation is to be accused of denying the sacred texts and thus, defying god.

  • A culture of fear around the “chain of command,” where voicing a concern to anyone, including your immediate superior, is seen as gossip or division.

• The impact of this tactic is the systematic outsourcing of your personal agency.
  
  Some theological systems attempt “erase any meaningful sense of agency” by teaching you to fundamentally distrust your own mind, intuition, and internal moral compass.
  
  You learn to subordinate your discernment to an external authority, creating a state of perpetual dependency.
  
  Over time, you stop flexing your own critical thinking muscles and can forget you ever had them.
  
  This short-circuits your ability to mature into an integrated adult, keeping you in a state of stunted spirituality where your worth is tied to your compliance.

7. Imposed Identity & The Erasure of Self

The ultimate goal of a high-control system is not merely to control your behavior, but to dismantle your authentic self and replace it with a new, system-approved identity.

Your unique personality, desires, and dreams are seen as threats to group cohesion and are systematically suppressed until the “you” that remains is a reflection of the system itself.

• This can look like:

  • Being told that your “old self”—including pre-existing hobbies, ambitions, and personality traits—is part of your “sinful nature” that must be “put to death.”

  • Leaders assigning you a “life purpose” or “calling” that serves the institution, which you are not permitted to question or refuse.

  • An intense “love bombing” phase for new members, designed to rapidly assimilate them into the group’s identity before their own critical thought and personal attachments can interfere.

  • A subtle but constant discouragement of any trait that doesn’t fit the group’s narrow mold—labeling artistic expression as “frivolous,” intellectual curiosity as “pride,” or emotional sensitivity as “weakness.”

• The impact of this tactic is the loss of connection to your authentic self.
  
  It creates a painful and disorienting split between the persona you must perform to survive and the quiet, embodied knowing of who you really are.
  
  This makes self-compassion feel impossible; you cannot offer self-kindness to a self you’ve been taught to hate or a persona you know is not real.
  
  It is the ultimate violation of a person’s dignity, as the system attempts to overwrite your unique, personhood with a standardized template.
  
  For many, the scariest part of leaving is not just losing a community, but facing the terrifying void of not knowing who you are without the imposed identity.
  
  Healing begins with the slow, courageous work of meeting yourself again, or perhaps for the very first time.

8. Spiritual Bypassing

Spiritual bypassing is the practice of using spiritual beliefs, language, and platitudes to sidestep or prematurely “resolve” complex human emotions and psychological needs.

Legitimate feelings like grief, anger, and doubt are relabeled as spiritual deficiencies that must be transcended through faith rather than processed through experience.

• This can look like:

  • Instructing someone to “give their sadness to god” or “choose joy” in the face of profound loss or depression, effectively shaming them for the natural and necessary process of grieving.

  • Demanding immediate forgiveness for betrayal, abuse ,or injustice without acknowledging the harm, which short-circuits righteous anger and prevents the establishment of safe boundaries.

  • Dismissing clinical anxiety or depression as a “spiritual attack” or a “lack of faith,” thereby discouraging professional help and promoting a Gnostic-like dualism that treats the body and its signals as untrustworthy.

  • Responding to valid questions or doubts with the directive to simply “pray more” or “have more faith,” shutting down intellectual and emotional exploration.

• The impact of this tactic is a profound and dangerous disconnection from your own humanity.
  
  This effectively “disciples us into disembodiment” (K.J. Ramsey).
  
  It is in opposition to mindfulness—a core component of self-compassion—which requires us to observe our feelings without judgment. Mindfulness with our emotions allows us to feel what we feel in they way we need to feel them.
  
  Instead, spiritual bypassing teaches you to immediately judge, suppress, and spiritually override your body’s most essential signals.
  
  This makes true healing impossible, as it denies a fundamental truth: wholeness isn’t found by escaping our humanity, but by integrating it.
  
  Spiritual bypassing leaves trauma unprocessed and your nervous system in a state of dysregulation, all under the guise of holiness.

9. Opacity and Exploitation

In these systems, accountability is replaced by unquestioning loyalty. A culture of secrecy is cultivated around finances, governance, and decision-making, while members are simultaneously pressured into sacrificial giving of their time, talent, and treasure.

Questions about these practices are framed not as responsible stewardship, but as spiritual weakness.

• This can look like:

  • High-pressure tithing messages (think: prosperity gospel) that explicitly link your financial generosity to your level of faith or potential for god’s blessing.

  • A celebrated “culture of burnout” where staff and volunteers are overworked and under-supported, with exhaustion being praised as a sign of spiritual devotion. Work 40 hours a week, serve 40 hours a week.

  • Major directional and financial decisions being made by an unaccountable board or leader behind closed doors, often justified by a simple “god told me/us.”

  • Punishing or shaming those who ask for financial transparency, labeling their legitimate questions as evidence of a “critical spirit” or a lack of trust in leadership.

• The impact of this tactic is the normalization of exploitation and the creation of moral injury.
  
  It reframes burnout as holiness and treats people as consumable resources for the institution.
  
  This is a profound violation of a person’s dignity, as it denies their inherent worth and treats them as a means to an end.
  
  It also makes self-compassion a spiritual crime.
  
  You cannot practice self-kindness by setting healthy boundaries around your time or money when the system glorifies boundary-less sacrifice.
  
  This dynamic can cause deep moral injury and institutional betrayal, as the very organization that claims to care for you becomes a source of harm, leaving your nervous system frayed and your sense of justice shattered.

10. Double Binds and Gaslighting

High-control systems thrive on the psychological trap of the double bind—the “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” scenario.

Gaslighting is the tool used to enforce this trap; it’s a form of psychological manipulation designed to make you doubt your own memory, perception, and sanity, leading you to believe that you are the problem, not the contradictory system.

• This can look like:

  • Proclaiming, “We welcome questions,” but when you ask one that challenges the status quo, you are punished or labeled as having a “rebellious spirit.”

  • Insisting, “We’re a family here,” but the moment you express an uncomfortable truth or a dissenting opinion, that “family” connection is severed, and you are treated like a threat.

  • Preaching, “You are free in Christ,” while simultaneously micromanaging every aspect of your life—from your relationships and finances to your entertainment choices.

  • No matter what you do, you are positioned to fail. If you are quiet, you lack passion. If you are passionate, you are being emotional and insubordinate.

• The impact of this tactic is the systematic erosion of your reality, forcing a violent split between your mind and your body.
  
  Gaslighting is profoundly damaging because it teaches you to betray your own physical, intuitive knowing.
  
  As Hillary L. McBride argues in The Wisdom of Your Body, our mental well-being and bodily condition are an “indivisible whole.”
  
  Gaslighting is a direct assault on this unity.
  
  The anxiety that twists your stomach before a service, the tension headaches that follow a difficult conversation with a leader, the shallow breathing that occurs when you feel judged, these are all valid signals from your nervous system.
  
  In a gaslit environment, you are taught to override your body and spiritually suppress your feelings. Your body becomes a landscape of unexplained symptoms—chronic pain, fatigue, digestive issues—screaming what your mind has been trained to silence.
  
  The ultimate goal is to sever the trust in your own embodied knowing that you become dependent on the abusive system to interpret your reality for you.
  
  Exhaustion begins to feel like devotion, and the slow betrayal of your own body feels like faith.

A Gentle Embodiment Practice

If your body feels stirred right now, that makes sense.
If it feels safe, take ninety seconds for this grounding practice:

1. Let your eyes move slowly around the room. Name three neutral objects you see.

2. Notice the surface beneath you. Feel how it supports you completely.

3. If you can, hold something cool, a mug, a metal object, a stone, and notice its temperature.

4. Place one hand over your chest, one over your stomach. Whisper softly: “I’m here. I’m allowed to take my time.”

5. Ask your body: Continue, pause, or stop? Trust the first answer you feel.

Reclaiming Agency After Control

• Name the pattern, not your failure. This is not a story of personal brokenness; it’s a story of survival.

• Rebuild curiosity in small, safe steps. Read something new. Listen to a voice outside the circle. Let yourself wonder again.

• Reconnect carefully. One honest conversation, one coffee, one shared laugh. Relationship, not replacement.

• Practice consent with your own attention. You decide what’s too much, what’s enough, and when to stop.

• Seek trauma-informed support if you want it. There is no shame in needing witnesses who understand.

You are not too sensitive.

You adapted to survive a system designed to override your instincts.

That adaptability is intelligence.

Your capacity to notice, question, and care for yourself now, that is agency, a core component of dignity.

You get to be in charge of your next.

At your pace. On your terms. In your language.

Resources for Continued Learning

This journey is not meant to be walked alone. The authors and thinkers below have been life-altering guides for me and so many others.

If you’re looking for your next step, this is a good place to start.

• When Religion Hurts You: Healing from Religious Trauma and the Impact of High-Control Religion by Laura E. Anderson.

• I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough” by Brené Brown, PhD.

• The Wisdom of Your Body: Finding Healing, Wholeness, and Connection Through Embodied Living by Hillary L. McBride, PhD.

• Self-Compassion: The Proven Power of Being Kind to Yourself by Kristin Neff, PhD.

• This Too Shall Last: Finding Grace When Suffering Lingers by K.J. Ramsey.

• Leaving the Fold: A Guide for Former Fundamentalists and Others Leaving Their Religion by Marlene Winell, PhD.

If this met you in a tender place, I’m honored.

If it wasn’t the right time, I’m honored by your choice to pause.

Your experience is real. Your perception is trustworthy.

Your dignity matters — always.

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Most people think the hardest part of leaving a high-control religious systems is losing belief. Often characterized by the late-night wrestling with theology, the unraveling of everything you thought was true.

And that is hard.

But there’s another grief that cuts even deeper: losing your social world.

It’s the sudden silence on your phone.

The empty Wednesday nights that used to be small group.

Walking through the grocery store and wondering if you’ll see someone you know—and realizing both seeing them and not seeing them hurt.

This is the second grief: the ache of disconnection that hits when the church wasn’t just where you “went to church”—it was your whole life.

When You Leave

As Marlene Winell writes in Leaving the Fold, these communities are often “tightly knit groups with a distinct separatist subculture.” When you step outside, you’re not just leaving a building—you’re leaving the fold.

And the loneliness can be staggering.

I remember that feeling vividly. I was driving through Southern California, trying to find the courage to leave a church that had stopped being life-giving. The isolation was immense. It felt like this one organization held my entire world—and walking away felt like walking into nothing.

Then I saw a hillside. Sunlit, sprawling, ancient. It seemed to care about me and the religiously abusive systems so many of us were and are caught in.

And a thought landed in my spirit, quiet and steady: The world is bigger than this church.

That moment gave me a glimmer of hope against the exclusivity, the fear, the false sense of “us versus them.” I could see a life for myself beyond.

That’s where the healing began.

Leaving is an act of reclaiming your agency and honoring your dignity.

But the system trains you not to. You’re told “self help” is a sin, that you must “die to yourself” for the sake of belonging.

So when you finally choose yourself, you carry guilt for doing what was necessary to survive.

And then comes the question: What does community look like now?

It’s quieter. Simpler. You find it in the most unexpected places.

Going to Trout Church Instead

Last Sunday, I went to what I jokingly call “trout church.” I went to one of my favorite fishing spots. Another angler stopped to chat—not about theology, but about flies and tactics and the shared peace of being alive in the same place.

That’s community now. It’s the hikers who smile on the trail, strangers who pause together at a sunset, spotting rainbows on the horizon and texting them to a friend who loves them. These moments don’t need matching doctrine to mean something.

Marlene Winell describes community as “Cohesive while open and connected to the wider world.” That’s what this feels like. Rooted in shared humanity, not shared dogma.

If you’re feeling the sting of that second grief, please know: you are NOT broken.

Never were. Never Are.

You’re not failing.

The pain you feel is proof of how deeply you once belonged.

It’s okay to mourn what was, even as you start to glimpse what could be.

The world is bigger than the box you were in. And it’s full of people, beauty, and unexpected connections waiting for you.

You can still be human together—even if it’s just two people talking to trout.

A Note for Those Who’ve Abandoned the Steeple

If you’ve stepped away from the building, the system, or the title that once defined your faith, you haven’t lost your soul. That isn’t something that is even possible. You have, however, outgrown a container that could no longer hold your beautiful becoming.

You didn’t “fall away” or “backslide.” You followed truth, tenderness, and integrity back to yourself.

You’re not faithless; you’re seeing and leaning into what is real and healing and hopeful for you.

Leaving the steeple doesn’t make you less spiritual. It means you’ve chosen honesty over belonging, love over loyalty to harm.

And that choice, however lonely it feels right now, is important.

You are still held by the same sky, the same earth, the same breath, the same pulse of life that has always known your name.

A Gentle Practice for Reconnection

If it feels safe for you, take a slow, steady breath.

Feel your feet on the ground or the surface that’s holding you.

Gently let your body know it’s safe enough to be right here, right now.

You might place a hand over your chest or rest it somewhere that feels comforting. Notice what sensations or emotions are present—no need to fix or analyze. Just acknowledge what’s here.

Now, gently bring to mind the possibility of new community. Not specific faces or places. Just the idea of being met with kindness, of belonging somewhere that honors your whole self.

If your body says “no” or “not yet,” that’s completely okay. You can stop at any point. Consent matters here, too.

If it feels available, you might whisper an intention:
May I find people who see me clearly.
May I be met with safety and warmth.
May I stay open to the quiet ways connection finds me.

Take one more breath. Let it be enough for now.

A Place for This Conversation

Thank you for being part of the conversation and community here at the Riverside.

My free eBook is now available, subscribe below to receive it in your welcome email.

Religious Trauma Attempts to Erode Your Dignity

When you grow up in high-control or shame-based religion, dignity is often the first thing to go.
You’re told who to be, what to believe, and how to feel. Over time, you begin to doubt your own goodness, your intuition, your belonging.

This course is an invitation to reclaim what was always yours.

As a paid (of gifted) Subscriber to the Riverside with AJZ, I’m offering you free access to this 10 day e-mail course delivered to your inbox.

Rediscovering Dignity is a 10-day, trauma-informed journey that blends compassionate psychology, embodiment, and gentle spiritual reflection to help you rebuild self-worth from the inside out.

Each day, you’ll receive:

• A short, reflective teaching rooted in Donna Hicks’ Elements of Dignity

• A trauma-informed embodiment or mindfulness practice to support integration

• A closing reflection or affirmation to anchor what you’ve learned

Delivered straight to your inbox — all for less than a cup of coffee a day.

What You’ll Learn

Across 10 days, you’ll explore how dignity shows up in every part of your healing:

1. Acceptance of Identity – You are not a problem to be solved.

2. Inclusion – You belong exactly as you are.

3. Safety – Your body deserves to feel secure.

4. Acknowledgment – Your story deserves to be seen and honored.

5. Recognition – You are worthy of being valued for who you are.

6. Fairness – You can release the roles and rules that kept you small.

7. Benefit of the Doubt – You are allowed to trust your own goodness.

8. Understanding – Curiosity, not certainty, leads to healing.

9. Independence – You have the right to think and choose for yourself.

10. Accountability – You can hold truth and compassion at the same time.

Each lesson is grounded in evidence-based trauma care, nervous system awareness, and dignity psychology—translated into simple language you can actually use.

Why It Matters

When you’ve lived under control or fear, healing can feel like trying to remember who you were before everything hurt.
But dignity isn’t something you have to earn. It’s the quiet truth of your being—your ability to feel, think, choose, and love.

This course doesn’t ask you to believe differently. It helps you live differently—from a place of wholeness, curiosity, and self-respect.

What Participants Are Saying

“I just finished Dignity Day 1 - it’s super beautiful.”
— E. S., Eastern Washington

“Every email felt like a deep exhale. I didn’t realize how much shame I was still holding until this helped me release it.”
— J. V. W., New England

“It’s rare to find something both gentle and transformative. This was both.”
— L. P., Southern California

Is This Course for You?

This course is designed for those who:

• Are deconstructing or healing from high-control religion

• Want a safe, structured way to reconnect with their body and self-worth

• Crave gentle, non-dogmatic guidance rooted in dignity, not doctrine

• Are ready to move forward—without bypassing or self-blame

If you’ve been wondering how to bridge the gap between knowing you’re free and feeling free, this is for you.

Read more

It was a cold Sunday morning in Montana.

I was in my usual spot—left side of the sanctuary, maybe twenty-five people scattered across the red chairs. The guest speaker had been preaching for about fifteen minutes when something shifted inside me.

A sudden charge. Heat rising through my chest. My nervous system screaming: something’s not right.

The guest speaker in the pulpit was making jokes about women—not innocent slips or awkward humor, but open discrimination dressed up as “biblical truth.” People laughed.

That uneasy laughter that fills a room when everyone knows something’s off but no one wants to be the first to name it.

When Your Body Knows Before Your Mind Does

I felt it in my body before I could make sense of it in my mind—that familiar tension when your integrity and your environment are completely out of step.

My body literally would not let me stay seated.

“I will not sit here while people laugh at harm,” I whispered under my breath.

So I stood up. Walked out. Never went back.

That single moment—choosing to trust my body over the room’s approval—changed everything. When the pastor later defended the speaker over a text message instead of addressing the harm, I knew my body had been right.

Integrity felt like leaving.

And it felt like freedom.

The Problem with Pulpits

Here’s what I’ve learned after years in ministry and through my doctoral research: pulpits rarely give people language for what’s happening in their bodies.

Instead, they often try to spiritually bypass it away.

Philosopher Michelle Panchuk calls this “hermeneutical injustice”—when people aren’t given the words to describe their own experience.

You might feel shame from religious leaders calling your anxiety a sin. They’ll slap you with bible verses about not being worried… just look at the birds…
You might experience spiritual abuse but be told it’s “submission” or “obedience.”

Without the right language, you can’t even name what’s wrong.

That morning in Montana, I already understood that idea in theory. But sitting in a space that didn’t just miss the harm but multiplied it? That was something else entirely.

Theory met embodiment. And I couldn’t unsee it.

The Moment Everything Changed

Walking out that day wasn’t just about one sermon. It was about choosing integrity over belonging.

For years, I had tried to offer guidance to improve harmful systems from the inside—slowly trading pieces of myself for approval.

But integrity? Integrity felt like standing up.
Like walking out.
Like never going back.

My body knew what my mind was still learning:
Some spaces aren’t safe for the human soul.
Some systems can’t be changed—they can only be left behind.

Why I’m Here

This is why I started this Substack.

Because religious trauma sucks—and too many people are left trying to make sense of it alone.

I want this space to be a community of survivors.
A place where we give language to what’s been dismissed, minimized, or blamed on our supposed “lack of faith.”
A space where your nervous system can finally exhale.

You weren’t too sensitive.
You weren’t asking too many questions.
The box you were in was just too small for all that you are.

And your body knew it all along.

An Embodiment Practice: Reconnecting to Your Integrity Compass

If it feels safe in your body and mind, I invite you into a short embodiment practice that can be helpful for reconnecting with your internal compass.

Your body holds wisdom your mind is still learning to trust. Let’s listen to it together.

• Find a comfortable seat. One hand on your chest, one on your stomach.

• Take three slow breaths.

• Notice what it is like to pay attention to your body.

  • For some this may feel comforting. For some of us, returning to our bodies may cause anxiety because what we’ve been taught about and experienced in our bodies. It is okay to go at the pace that works for you. You can conclude here if you need to.

• If it feels safe to continue, think of a time ou chose integrity—when you spoke your truth, set a boundary, or walked away from something that wasn’t right for you.

• Notice what it is like to connect your breath to a memory of integrity.

• Take three more slow breaths and quietly repeat:

  • “My body knows the difference between safe and unsafe.”

  • “I can trust my body’s wisdom.”

  • “Choosing integrity over approval is choosing myself.”

• End with both hands over your chest.

• Breathe deep.

Your integrity compass lives here—in your body.
It will not mislead you.

As an extension of my gratitude, here is a free PDF download of my eBook:

Rediscovering Dignity: How to Reclaim Your Agency and Love After High-Control Religious Systems.

By Dr. Andrew J. Zimmermann

Rediscovering Dignity How To Reclaim Your Agency And Love After High Control Religious Systems By Andrew J

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