A Space to Reclaim Yourself & Your Path
Religious Trauma
Deconstructing, reconstructing, processing abuse and trauma from faith communities or religion can be unsettling, alarming, and confusing.
Religious trauma can show up as holding a negative view of self, anxiety, depression, guilt, shame, relational difficulties, and PTSD symptoms. You can often feel this in your body and you can see it alive in your relationships. Religious trauma and the deconstruction process can ripple into every inch of our lives - It can damage self-esteem, create a deep sense of unworthiness, and lead to constant fear of judgment or punishment — even long after you’ve left the religious environment.
Healing from religious trauma isn’t only about addressing past wounds - it’s centered around discovery of who you are, what you believe, and reclaiming your sense of purpose and living freely.
Deconstruction
You don’t have to experience religious trauma to deconstruct religious beliefs. Deconstruction can look like critically examining and dismantling previously held beliefs. This can stem from negative experiences or disillusionment with faith spaces. Deconstruction can look like letting go of beliefs and it can look like discovering new beliefs. I am here to be with you on that journey, free of judgement or critique. You can read more about this process here.
Sacred Shifts
What Therapy Can Look Like
We will look at your unique upbringing and religious experiences & their impacts on your life
Name & process traumatic experiences using experiential models of therapy (IFS & EFT)
Begin to challenge and transform negative views of self and internalized shame and guilt
Discover stable and solid ground and wholeness in new beliefs or transformed beliefs
Center around your values that guide you to create meaning and fulfilment in your life
Discover confidence in yourself and begin to trust your experiences
Let go of tension in the body and make your default ease and rest, not anxiety and tension
Begin to explore other forms on community that are meaningful and authentic, where you feel belonging and acceptance for the totality of who you are
I’ll Be Honest…
I have unique and special qualifications to do this work -My theological training has equipped me to not shy away from these conversations. I am comfy in the unknown, the grey, and enjoy asking the “not safe for church” questions. I have extensive knowledge around the history, dynamics, structures, and ways of the Christian Church.
My first grad degree is a Masters in Divinity. I have studied theology for a long time, I’ve worked in churches, I’ve led small groups, I’ve preached many times. I’ve also left that field and remained a spiritually connected human, but this time on my own terms.
I have no agenda about what you should or should not believe (that’s just creating another space for self-judgement and critique from others).
I love this work because I’ve also been around it my whole life. I was raised Catholic (Irish and Italian, thank you!) and in high school decided I wanted to be part of my local Evangelical Church. In my formative years I was enveloped in both Catholic and Evangelical teachings about purity, shame, and the kind of person I was supposed to be. All to say, I know religious cultures well. I have also walked with friends and mentors through doubts, religious trauma, spiritual abuse, deconstructions, and shifting faith traditions. As your therapist I see, know, and have lived in the landscape - how church culture works socially, how church community operates, the stress and pressure that comes from being part of a community that keeps asking more and more of you. I have also been part of beautiful iterations of what faith communities can be. I’m here to support you toward whatever your next step is.
& even with all this previous knowledge, I stay up to date on research around trauma and religion. I stay informed on best practices for processing trauma from church spaces - whether it was a high control religion, if you are part of the LGBTQ+ community, for those who experienced sexual abuse or assault in the church, for those who no longer trust their bodies or personal beliefs. I utilize all the skills I have developed from the therapy training to assist you in trauma-informed, non-judgemental, radically accepting processing of trauma.
One of my favorite parts of therapy is delving into beliefs that were handed to us and really questioning if we want to keep holding them. This is often a space of honesty, authenticity, and hard conversations. Processing religious trauma, deconstruction, and purity culture can often feel like we’re betraying the community that raised us or even particular individuals - it often feels lonely and like the questions never stop.
As someone who has been on this journey, I see you in all of that and am honored to walk alongside you.
You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on. Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes, over the prairies and the deep trees, the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again. Whoever you are, no matter how lonely, the world offers itself to your imagination, calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting -over and over announcing your place in the family of things.
Mary Oliver, Wild Geese
A poem that guides my work