Tia Levings on Spiritual Abuse

Episode 16 December 21, 2023 00:41:23
Tia Levings on Spiritual Abuse
Rachel on Recovery
Tia Levings on Spiritual Abuse

Dec 21 2023 | 00:41:23

/

Hosted By

Rachel Stone

Show Notes

I’m Tia Levings, a writer, creator, guest expert, and content specialist. I shine light on the abuses of Christian fundamentalism and offer contextual insight into the true horrors of religious trauma. My memoir, A Well-Trained Wife: My Escape from Christian Patriarchy, releases with St. Martin’s Press in 2024. 

My videos on social media have millions of views. Through the lens of my personal experience, I connect entertainment, news headlines, and current events to fundamentalist influences and strategy. 

I write about religious trauma and Christian fundamentalism to educate, validate, and empower those who feel smashed by the patriarchy. To create something beautiful from pain. And, because when I went through the hell of church-sanctioned violence, I felt alone and I wasn’t. There are thousands of others out there. 

I want you to know you aren’t alone. And even if the church condones and shelters it, abuse is never okay. 

 

A high-level glimpse of my story:

I was married at 19 to a charming but erratic man who loved theology. I’d grown up in a conservative, mainline Baptist church, groomed to be a sexually pure bride and submissive wife. But there was violence and abuse from the beginning––and I wasn’t equipped to recognize it.

I did what I’d been trained to do: turn to my church for help. 

Help came in the form of mentors who were part of Bill Gothard’s Institute of Basic Life Principles, and pastor-counselors who’d been influenced by the rise of Christian Fundamentalism. “Help” looked like teaching me to be more submissive and to receive what my husband offered, even if that was abuse. Life grew smaller and more narrow and I felt like I was dying inside. 

But a series of tragic events cracked me open.

And then, I found a group of smart women online who shared their discoveries and growth. “Women talking” directly opposed the “women should be silent” world I lived in.

I grew.

I became more assertive. And I thought I’d found a way to balance these two worlds:

Balance was a delusion. As I became more independent and healthy, high-control religion and domestic abuse tightened their grip. My husband became more erratic and dangerous. In October of 2007, things came to a violent head and I narrowly escaped with my children in the middle of the night. 

What followed was a long road to freedom and healing. Ten years of trauma therapy. Five years of faith deconstruction. Becoming a single parent; falling in love. Raising four children with my village. Developing a career. Finding, and then using, my voice. Learning how to step out of the shadows so that I could shine. 

It’s been a long time since I was stuttering and hiding in a bedroom closet. And it also feels like yesterday. As I create videos, bylines, and my memoir about Christian Fundamentalism, time feels urgent. TV shows like the Duggar’s 19 Kids and Counting and Counting On glossed up the hideous realities and made fundie life seem wholesome. But that delusion is dangerous. Our laws, and women’s rights specifically, are impacted by high-control religion right now. Our society is being shaped, our country is changing. 

 

I believe you need to know why. 

The Christian Patriarchy has a strategy and a plan. As they shelter abuses, riding on the assumption that no one knows what’s going on behind closed doors, and using religious freedom as an umbrella shield, true suffering is happening. Slavery, rape, trafficking, child neglect, medical neglect, baby abuse and more is the reality as they prepare for their holy war. 

I’ve been there and I’m here to talk about it. 

 

A few personal details: 

I’m also a Content Strategist with 20 years in marketing. I offer those services at workingwriter.info

I’m Mom to four incredible young adults. Favorite hooman of dog Georgia and cat Howard.

I love to hike, daydream and travel slowly. I now identify as spiritually private, because it was having a binary, firm answer to life’s mysterious questions that got me into fundamentalism in the first place. I don’t believe there’s a magic formula or set of rules to help us escape the Human Experience. 

I also paint and love movies. 

“A wild patience has brought me this far.” –Adrienne Rich 

I’m represented by Trinity McFadden of The Bindery Agency. My memoir releases in 2024. 

View Full Transcript

Episode Transcript

[00:00:01] Speaker A: Hi, this is Rachel in recovery. We're here with Tia lovings, and she's going to tell us a little bit about herself and then answer some questions. [00:00:10] Speaker B: Hi. I'm glad to be here today. Like a bio? We should start with a bio, I guess. Yeah. I'm an author who wrote a memoir called a well trained wife. It's now available for pre order. It's the story of my escape from christian patriarchy. I was in the Bill Gothard Institute of Basic Life Principles, but also a southern baptist fundamentalist church that became more restrictive as I grew. And then we went into reformed theology and very high control presbyterianism. And there's a whole lot of plot points along the way in that I educate on the abuses and christian fundamentalism online today on all social platforms, and that's usually how people find my work. And I'm looking forward to our conversation today. [00:01:03] Speaker A: What was the realization that you were in a spiritually abusive community? [00:01:11] Speaker B: This is an interesting question because I think spiritual abuse is probably the last component that dawned on me, because I was in a very physically violent situation. Sexual, financial, emotional, psychological, all of those abuses took the forefront. And it was not until I had escaped my situation had been years in trauma recovery that we started to put words to what landed me in that situation in the first place, which was spiritual abuse and religious trauma. But it didn't have language. This was about ten years ago, didn't have language. And it's interesting we are recording this today because my friend Dr. Laura Anderson has written a book called when religion hurts you. It's the first therapeutic research and resource that's specifically for religious trauma. And it's the book I wish I had ten years ago that would have helped me realize that I was in a spiritually abusive situation if I'd had the verbiage for it. So I'm looking forward to the power of that kind of work and the things that happen online, because the more people share their stories, the more others can realize the spiritual abuse is often the foundation for all the other abuses. It helps form your identity and your nervous system responses and your trauma responses and everything. The way that you interact with the world can be tied so deeply to your spiritual formation. [00:02:45] Speaker A: I have friends that have been experienced some of the similar abuses, and. [00:02:52] Speaker B: I. [00:02:52] Speaker A: Think when you add spiritual abuse, it adds so many extra layers of trauma. [00:03:04] Speaker B: We can agree with that. [00:03:08] Speaker A: You can recover from a lot of things and get better. I think when somebody abuses you using God and using the church, it just compounds it so much more. Not hair, traumas. But I've seen the recovery and it. [00:03:32] Speaker B: Just takes a lot longer. It's so integral to your core of how you understand yourself and your source of comfort and refuge. There's nowhere to go when they violate your spirituality. Yeah. So I empathize with that and relate to it. [00:03:56] Speaker A: You are recently on shiny happy people. Tell us a little bit about that. [00:04:03] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's exciting time for shiny happy people as well because we were just nominated for a critic's choice award yesterday. Yeah. Shiny Happy People was a documentary project that was untitled that came my way as a result of my Internet work. The producers were referred to me through another participant on the show, another castmate, and I went and recorded it without really fully understanding what the project was going to be. I just knew that I was ready to participate in something very visible and gave it my best. And none of us cast mates met each other or there wasn't a lot of cohesiveness around the project. Deadline got pushed back a couple of times. We didn't really know what we were making, what we were participating in, but we trusted the producers really well. They seemed to have the heart of the story and the heart of survivors as their first priority, and it turned out to be the best instinct for all of us. We all are just very proud and gratified to have been part of a project that is illuminating the way those abuses happen and the impact that it's happening on our wider culture. And it broke all the records at Amazon and it debuted really high and it's been a fun ride. Yeah. Is there anything specific you want to know about signing for over you? [00:05:35] Speaker A: As somebody who grew up in the baptist church, we were on the outskirts of the Bill Gothry. We knew people because we were homeschooled, but we were not in that camp, so to speak. We knew people, but we were not in it. We weren't wandered the James Dobson arena. [00:06:04] Speaker B: Yes. I think what I hope is a lot of people take away is how related all of these names are. Bill author and you know, were contemporaries. Their work influenced one another. There's enough there to say that they had a working friendship and the followers use a lot of the same resources. So a lot of the IBLP followers also were listening to adventures in Odyssey and reading strong world child and participating in all of Dobson's focus on the family ministries and also the way that the worked. Like I was also not a paid member. I didn't attend any conferences, but I was mentored by people using the IBLP's message as an evangelism tool, and they recruited within churches. So they were heavily influencing our church and our wider denomination. So we were part of Southern Baptist Convention, and my church was pastored by one of the presidents of the Southern Baptist Convention and is very much under the influence of the Institute of Basic Life Principles. But most of the membership would not have even known that. What they knew was there were these upstanding families with lots of children who are also involved in leadership, and they're good christians that we should all aspire to be. And so their lifestyle then behaviors would trickle down into our congregation. But nobody knew, top of mind, that they were participating in Bill Gothard's belief system. [00:07:40] Speaker A: I can see that. I mean, that makes sense why we saw remnants, but we were not a part of it. [00:07:49] Speaker B: Right. [00:07:50] Speaker A: Because I went to a lot of baptist churches during the would say. [00:07:58] Speaker B: Yeah, that's the hiding 90s, early 2000. [00:08:04] Speaker A: Is there anything else you'd like to tell us about that? [00:08:10] Speaker B: About chinese people or the eastern european? Nothing specific comes to mind. I think one of the best parts of chinese happy people is the actual fourth episode where it shows the wider political strategy that is impacting America. And these are not people who just are politically active, as is their american right. These are people who are using the political system in order to promote their dominionism theology, which is to take over the world. They don't really believe in religious freedom for everyone. They want to use America's platform of religious freedom so that they can gain their stronghold. And I think the documentary did a good job of demonstrating some of the behind the scenes infrastructure that's in place to work through super pacs and young leadership that's impacting our headlines and our laws as we speak. The country is becoming more conservative as a result of those efforts. Yes. [00:09:20] Speaker A: I would say there's a teeny tiny bit of good in that and. [00:09:23] Speaker B: A lot of bad. Well, diversity is good, right. And everyone is entitled to their personal beliefs, and that is what America was founded. We democracy, know pluralistic voices, and that's what's getting lost by design, because in the IBLP and in other fundamentalist groups, they don't believe in pluralism, and they're not working towards that pluralism. So they don't really want everybody to have a seat at the table. Yeah. [00:10:01] Speaker A: Okay. I think that's a great point to bring up. You've written some books. Tell us about that. [00:10:11] Speaker B: Yeah, well, I have some little books that are of no consequence in my journey to become an author. The one that worth talking about is a well, trade wife, which is coming out with St. Martin's press August of 2024 and it is now open for preorders. It opened last week and it's the story of how I got in and out of fundamentalism and all the things that I learned, changed and journeyed in the path to myself, coming home to myself as a result of that 40 year journey to lose myself in high control religion, find myself again and pull us out of it into safety and recovery. One of the things that sets my book apart from other cult memoirs is that I do spend a chunk of time exploring what recovery looked like and what it meant, because that is the ultimate character arc. I was a person before high control religion got me and returned in recovery back to my own autonomy, and that's the journey that I wanted to tell. It's not just a series of bad things that happened to me. They were part plot points on a journey that I have come through, and I hope that it's inspiring to other survivors to know that they can overcome the hard things that happen to them too. One of the things I say frequently is trauma. Already took your past. It shouldn't get to take your present and your future too. So recovery is the tool that helps us take our lives back. [00:11:48] Speaker A: Yes, that's a lot of the reason I do this show. We talk more about recovery than what happened in the past because we don't need to relive it. We can get the highlights and people can use their imaginations from there. Speaking of recovery, what have you done for recovery? [00:12:15] Speaker B: A shorter question might be what I have not done. I'm very fierce about my recovery. I feel like I'm my first advocate before I expect anyone else to advocate for me or to fight for me or to provide for me, I try to show up for myself. So that has been manifested in a way that means I will try. If someone says a modality is having success for other survivors, I looked for caregivers who were skilled at it and I gave it a shot. It looks like being really religious almost about my self care, like understanding that no, I can't skip my creature needs, and that's probably an ongoing balance because life happens and trauma happens and activation comes with seasons and waves. So personal self care is sometimes challenging to keep at the forefront, but it's absolutely essential to having what it takes to recover. Recovery is really hard work and it's brave and it involves the nervous system and the emotions so much that if you're not feeding your body and drinking water and moving and giving yourself time to hear yourself think is a really big one. You'll be overcome either by your past and the damage that it was done, or by other voices who are looking for pliable young minds to control. Cult hopping is a very real phenomenon. People will leave one toxic environment and fall into another simply because they're more familiar with that dynamic. Their bodies just find a familiarity to it, and it's easier. And it's not always very conscious. So to make that conscious and to make that something that you can see, that takes determination and very specific intentionality. So I've tried all the big trauma modalities, EMDR and brain spotting, and somatic experience and awareness embodiment. I tried cognitive behavior therapy. I didn't find it to be very helpful for trauma. And that's a very common testimonial for trauma survivors. Simply talking about your trauma can be very retraumatizing and not very effective in rewiring the brain and how we experience what happened to us in waves in the recovery process. A lot of it's been a health journey, like just taking care of my body and dealing with all the things when the body keeps the score, that manifests in physical symptoms. So a lot of recovery has spent dealing with the migraines and panic attacks, anxiety attacks, night terrors, night sweats, all the things that come with it, the aches and pains, chronic fatigue, stuff that comes up as a result of trauma symptoms. A lot of trauma survivors have chronic illness. And so much amazing, exciting research has been done recently to show that that's trauma that's stored in your body. And if you can heal the trauma, then you indirectly heal the symptom. So that's been a big part, because I have a whole separate story that's just medical health that turned out to all be related to my trauma experiences, that I won't seed, I won't feed, I won't give up more of my life to what happened. [00:15:58] Speaker A: How has this affected your family? [00:16:04] Speaker B: Oh, that's a good question. Family is a very fluid thing, I think, and that's one of the things I discover outside of fundamentalism, because family was like the cornerstone of fundamentalism, and you're producing this quiverful and all of the high control behaviors focused on family dynamics. So coming out of fundamentalism as a family, which I did with my children, has been very complex. They were young children when I left. They were ten and under, and they're adults now. So those are their teenage years that we were healing. And also, I was completely flipping how I parented I tried to parent as a fundamentalist when they were very young, and then a lot of my rebellion manifested in my motherhood because I was not willing to hurt them or to do things, follow fundamentalist practices, basically, that I thought were antithetical to the kind of mother I wanted to be. So in recovery, I was actively changing my parenting style in many times in ways that younger me would have thought was wrong or being a bad mom or sinner, whatever language we want to use. So with my work today, I'm just very private about my children. I don't talk about them. I protect their privacy, their identities, their young adulthood. This is my memoir and my interpretation of my experiences. And just like siblings can have, they have different childhoods because they have different versions of their parents. Their experience of what we went through is their own, and I don't want to speak for that. So it's very compartmentalized my family. Now I'm who I am to them as their mom, not as a trauma survivor. [00:18:05] Speaker A: What about sibling that's separate your parent? [00:18:12] Speaker B: I have their support to do this work. They've been supportive the whole way in recovery, but they're all still evangelical christians in a very fundamentalist environment. They do not agree with me ideologically, which is okay. That's their journey. And they had a different experience than I did. And we have found ways. Like a lot of people who have political and spiritual differences in their families, we have found ways to have boundaries, use boundaries carefully while still being supportive of one another. [00:18:52] Speaker A: Can you tell us a little bit about that? Like, what would you recommend for people going through? [00:18:59] Speaker B: Yeah, this comes up a lot for survivors. It really does. I know so many survivors have to cut family off, or they have to, for their own safety, estrange themselves from situations that led to their trauma. So what I always say is, start with, are you safe? First and foremost is your safety. Sometimes periods of time are apart are necessary so that you can do the hard work of healing if the harm is continuing. That's a different situation. Like, in my situation, my family was not the cause of my harm, so I didn't need to separate from them to stop harm from happening. It was all external. As for boundaries, I have something, a little technique I use called the I can list, which helps me have a more positive outlook than feeling trapped by my family or inundated with what I can't do. There are some things I cannot do, and if I stay in that place where I'm focused on what I can't do, I'll trigger panic attacks because I'll feel pressured that I have to do these things. Example, like a family dinner during an election cycle or something. Something. This is too stressful. So the I can list helps me flip the boundary to what I can do because my boundaries are about me. So can I show up for an hour or two? Can I bring a dessert and then leave? Can I stay in a hotel instead of spending the night trying out different scenarios and deciding what feels good in my body helps me say, well, I can do this. And then if they don't like that, that's on them. But I can do this, and this is as far as I can go. There have been years where the best I can do is to send a card, or the best I can do is visit for a few days instead of be there for every activity. I know people who have had to move away, they lived next door to their families. They had to move because in order to stay in relationship, they couldn't live so close. That all comes through boundary work. And knowing what you can tolerate, those. [00:21:16] Speaker A: Are very good examples, and I think that's a good thing to realize. What can I do first? I think that's a good example. I really like that. I might keep that. [00:21:30] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a handy thing to reach for because your nervous system is activated when you feel like you can't do something and you're being pressured. And that makes it really hard to think clearly and make a sound decision. So that little trick is a nice way to take your power back. [00:21:50] Speaker A: How has this impacted your health? [00:21:56] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:21:59] Speaker A: I'm better now. [00:22:00] Speaker B: I'll start there. Better now. It has been a journey. I was diagnosed with what they thought was MS in 2013, which I escaped in 2007. I started trauma therapy in 2011, and I was so sick in 2013 that I couldn't see the color white. Everything was pink. I was passing out all the time, having weak, long migraine muscle, body weakness, couldn't sometimes sit up and hold my head up. And they ran every test they knew around and they guessed, like, they thought I had multiple sclerosis and would be in a wheelchair and blind. And I got really angry at that because I did not accept that I came through this traumatic experience and did so much work to be safe. And then that was going to be my story, that I was going to end up like that. So I started therapy, actually to deal with the medical journey. That's how I got into trauma therapy, was how I made the switch from cognitive behavioral, which was not really working for me. I started going to trauma therapy in order to deal with medical trauma. Medical trauma was my gateway into understanding what trauma was and how it impacts the body. And then I had some really good doctors that kind of understood how to say, this is in your body and in your head, without dismissing it and saying, it's all in your head. There's a difference there. It's not in my head. It's actually physically happening to me, but also it's in my head because it's got trauma roots. And so it took years, but I made gains and strength. And there's a lot to this part of the story that is more than we could cover today. But I think it's also an experience I hear reflected in a lot of survivors that they are experiencing physical impacts long term, sometimes very debilitating physical impacts because of what they've gone through and phobias and things that it's very hard to overcome. And there can be a second wave of medical journey that is really hard to navigate, especially in America, where resources are tight and unavailable, very expensive, and medicines have side effects that then you have to know help for your side effects. And it can be very complicated. I think it's an area that just needs more research and more time and attention to it. And I think that's happening, but very slowly. [00:24:38] Speaker A: I would agree with you. I mean, there's a lot of resources and different things you can try, but no, the body, it sounds like your body said, I need help, and I need help now. [00:24:52] Speaker B: Yes. It was like shutting down really hard. Yeah. [00:24:58] Speaker A: I'm glad you listened to your body. Our bodies tell us what's going on. I can relate to that. [00:25:08] Speaker B: Correct. [00:25:09] Speaker A: I can relate to that in many ways. How has this impacted your career? [00:25:16] Speaker B: Well, I wasn't planning on that. I have a background in marketing as a copywriter and a UX writer, which is user experience. And I've always written for the Internet. And I had that very separated from what I did online. And my online work was low key until about two and a half years ago when my platform blew up. When I started making reels about the Duggar family and the IBLP and christian fundamentalist abuses in general, that became an extra full time job. So I had a couple of years there where I was doing two very demanding full time jobs, 80 to 90 hours a week of content creation, plus my job. And that included writing my memoir. So I was working really hard for a long time and then through some other changes in my life this year. Like, I sold the book last year, and this year I've been traveling most of the year, so my content work is my career, and I feel called to this work. I feel like it's. Working with survivors is probably always what I meant to be, and I'm committed to that. [00:26:37] Speaker A: Well, I watch the reels, and I can relate to them, so I know there's a lot of other people that can relate to them as well. How has this impacted your finances? [00:26:53] Speaker B: It's a funny question. When I saw it on the list, I was like, well, I mean, that's a fluid thing, too. So much of this is fluid. Life after fundamentalism moves. I would say money. My attitudes towards money have had to be deconstructed, because in fundamentalism, money was handled very differently than out here in the real world. You were ashamed if you wanted it and you had to tithe. But the people in power all have it. The people on the bottom don't have it. There's a lot of poverty involved. As I got out of fundamentalism and I was a single mom, I had to work on a career, which was not something that I was equipped to do at the time, had not spent any time of my life preparing for, and so I had to start from the ground up and build a life and build a career. So that took a lot of work. It was eventually successful, and then I sold my book. Well, which was wonderful. But then I also got a divorce, which was not wonderful for my second husband. So I think I just view money now as a tool. I understand that it will come and it will go, and it's an important aspect of agency and freedom. It's very hard to become free from high control groups without the accessibility to money. So I spend a lot of time thinking and talking about how women can have their own finances and have no shame around needing to build them and to be smart with their money. There's some wealth coaches that I follow that I share a lot that just teach women the basics of money, because in patriarchy, we're not really taught how to effectively use it as a tool, and it becomes very emotional and a method of control. And I come from a lot of financial abuse. So this is an ongoing area, too, for deconstruction? [00:28:53] Speaker A: Yes. I just had an interview with the lawyer, and she talked about banks working with those getting out of abusive relationships and how banks are struggling for customers right now. To take that into consideration when you're working with some of the banks, so they're trying to change the banking world so it's more easily accessible to those who've gotten out of those abusive relationships, because credit can be ruined because of being in those types of relationships. [00:29:34] Speaker B: Absolutely. That's important. [00:29:39] Speaker A: How has this impacted your parenting? [00:29:45] Speaker B: Oh, it completely changed it. I think the biggest thing that I changed was I started taking my children seriously at a young age. I did not look at them as something to mold and to force to conform into a mindset that I decided for them. I never pressured them to choose a spiritual path, a religious path. I didn't shame them for ordinary, healthy development. They're given unconditional love, which is not something in fundamentalism. There was no, like, when I stopped spanking them, there was no corporal punishment. I think parenting is an area that completely reformed from one side to the other side, and it is ongoing because even though they're adults, they have their own traumatic pasts to unpack. And I very many times am the only advocate that they had. But I'm also sometimes complicit in the harm that they experienced, and they need to be able to come to me and say, you chose this, and it hurt, and I need to talk about it. And so parenting today looks like supporting what they want for their lives, but also being always available when they are in process and not getting defensive and shutting them down. [00:31:20] Speaker A: I think that's important, especially coming out of fundamentalism. There's a lot of scars. [00:31:30] Speaker B: Yeah. And parents can be really defensive about why those scars happened, because they meant well. Most parents, the majority of parents meant well and believed leadership, telling them that these methods and techniques would be in the best interest of their family and their child. And the fruit does not bear that. The fruit bears harm. Be really hard for a parent to admit their part in that. Also, abusers are made. They're not born. So that's like looking at the fruit and practices is extremely important because there's a recipe. There's a recipe to create an abuser, and there's a recipe to create a healthy person. [00:32:19] Speaker A: Yes, that is true. Is there anything else you like to add on parenting? [00:32:31] Speaker B: Just love your kids. Give them unconditional love. And there is no idea that is more important than a person. So that's the most unfundamentalist thing somebody can do, is decide that they are not going to place ideology over people, and the first place that starts is your children. [00:32:51] Speaker A: That's very well put. What are some of the best advice you could give someone? Leaving Bill Goffard's teachings, or any other cult for that matter. [00:33:08] Speaker B: It's a little unconventional, but I tell people to take lots of walks. Walking will help move trauma through your body. It helps move energy through your body. But the most important thing that walking does is allow you to hear yourself. And it can be anxiety producing to somebody who is not accustomed to hearing themselves or does a lot of self censure and judgment and harmful self talk. But it's an important step to give yourself time to hear yourself and get in touch again with your intuition, your own conscience. The other thing I say a lot is inner child therapy was one of the most important modalities I used because it got me connected to who I was before the cult, who I was before high control thought, and all of the situations that made me vulnerable to that group. So that looks like inner child work. Looks like a lot of spending time with little. You like what you like to do as a little child? I like to color. I like to climb trees. I like to play outside. So as I was leaving and deconstructing that thought, I spent a lot of time doing the things that I loved to do when I was six. Also, surrounding yourself with other survivors who have been out is important because the number one thing that people talk about is the loss of community. It's very hard. Especially I had a formal shunning that was part of my experience. It is really hard when you leave religion to lose the community aspect. That's a motivator for people. Joining it in the first place is to have a sense of belonging. And because there are so many outsiders now, exiles and survivors, that it's important to go looking for where those people are and to surround yourself with new people who can understand what you're going through. [00:35:15] Speaker A: Sorry. What do you do for self care? [00:35:23] Speaker B: Covered this a little bit earlier, but self care looks like taking care of me as if I was a little baby that needed a mom. I put myself to bed. I take myself for walks. I make sure she gets a bath and she eats enough food. It's really simple, and these are the things that people struggle with. Taking care of your body is first moving your body every day. Yoga, walking. I like to run. I like to play outside. I like to move my body in ways that feel fun, like dancing and stuff like that. Remembering to play time alone and doing the things that I like. I'm an introvert. I'm an Enneagram four. So I like to go to the movies alone. I like to take road trips alone and travel alone. I've been solo traveling most of 2023, and it's been incredible to be with who I like. I like me, so it's nice to spend time with me and not taking care of. As a mom of many kids, and I was mom so young, I take care of everybody around me really easily and intuitively. So it's self care for me sometimes taking myself out of situations where I might revert into caring, caretaking. And sometimes that means that most of the time it means physical removal, like, I need to go be alone or I will start taking care of people, which is okay in moderation. It just doesn't need to be to the extent that I do it. [00:37:01] Speaker A: What is the best advice ever given to you about leaving fundamentalism? [00:37:08] Speaker B: It was ask questions, question everything. It's the piece of, I go back to this almost every day. Question everything. When you have a penchant for the comfort of Fundamentalism, which is, is it very comforting to have the right answer, to have a formula that people tell you works? Fundamentalism thrives in chaotic moments in history. So we have all this chaos happening in our world right now. It also makes us, on the whole, very vulnerable to fundamentalist thinking because we're looking for surety. So being able to question it and not take one person's viewpoint as the gospel, to refuse gurus like, I will not have a guru again, I will not have a holy person. I will not adhere to a single book for wisdom. Those are important boundaries to put on the experience. But also even that, how is that working for me? Check the fruit in my life frequently. What is what I'm doing producing? And is that healthy? Positive takes self reflection and self awareness to live a life of inquiry. That's an ongoing situation. [00:38:34] Speaker A: How has this impacted your faith? [00:38:39] Speaker B: I always answer this with, I identify now as spiritually private. Like I said a few minutes ago, I like a good binary. I like a good firm black and white answer. People are always trying to pin me down, like, what do you believe today? As soon as I answer that question, I put myself in a box. And there's a very real part of me that loves to be in the right box. Like, oh, yes, they're happy with me because I said the thing they want me to say, and they've made sure I'm safe or I'm somebody they want to hear. And that people pleasing part of me gets toxic really quickly, and it's not genuine. So I have to answer the question by giving myself a space to say that is fluid, that is private, and how I live my character is all you need to know. People should be looking at me. They should be questioning the things I say. They should be checking me against other resources that land well for them because I'm not anybody's guru either, and my character should be all they need to know. Am I the kind of person they want to spend time listening to? They can answer that for themselves. I need to have integrity. That's how I answer that. [00:40:02] Speaker A: Is there anything else you'd like to add? [00:40:04] Speaker B: Yeah, just that I know this is a recovery themed podcast, and I like to remind survivors that you deserve to heal. The healing is possible, and you deserve to fight for yourself. Always be your first advocate. Choose yourself. We are conditioned to wait on a savior in high control religion, wait on rescue somebody else to see our need and meet it and to take us seriously. But salvation and rescue starts with us taking our own suffering seriously. So if you can, remember to choose yourself and to advocate for yourself, that's the spirit of a survivor. [00:40:48] Speaker A: Okay, I think that's. Thanks, tia. And thanks, guys, for listening. This is Rachel recovery. We'll be back next. Actually, we'll be taking a break after this. This will be my last episode of the year because I am taking the holidays off, and I will be running the best of Rachel for the next of 2023. And we will back in 2024. All right, thanks, guys.

Other Episodes

Episode 4

January 26, 2023 00:24:22
Episode Cover

Mike Leake on Spiritual Abuse

Mike Leake is small town paster in Missouri.  Mike Leake is learning about victim advocates needs in the church. He has experinced some of...

Listen

Episode 19

April 07, 2022 00:25:47
Episode Cover

Jerold Jay Kreisman Interview on I hate you don't leave me

Jerold J. Kreisman, MD, is a psychiatrist and leading expert on borderline personality disorder (BPD). He is coauthor of the best seller I Hate...

Listen

Episode 17

April 27, 2023 00:33:59
Episode Cover

Melissa Bolden on Spiritual Abuse Part 1

Family, Jesus and emboldening others are Melissa’s passions. She loves to teach on God’s love, the power of grace, and our identity in Christ....

Listen