I wrote my story of leaving faith a few years ago. It’s called “The Sentimental Non-Believer.” There’s a chapter called ‘Melancholy’ and in the lead up to Easter you can download it here. I wrote ‘Melancholy’ over Easter that year as I realised I hadn’t felt the heaviness that usually
We so often believe and are taught that anger is unhealthy and needs to be managed and suppressed. But anger is human and is good information. If we’re not used to feeling it, we can mistake it for rage and think we’re going too far when really we’re testing out what it could feel like to express what we need and speak up when we’ve been hurt.
My humanity pulls me toward grief, I am heartbroken at the suffering I see and am forcing myself to witness. I tend to my own trauma stewardship so I can enlarge my capacity to feel it and bear it with the global community.
I’ve become a beauty chaser since leaving organised religion.
I’ve realised it’s where I feel God/god/the ground of all being/the energy of every living thing.
It makes me feel held.
Part of something bigger than me.
A sunset can hold my gratitude and joy, the ocean the waves of my pain, the grass beneath my feet makes me feel grounded.
Beautiful music, gorgeous fresh produce, flowers and colour all make feel centred, rested, peaceful.
They make me smile.
We used to refer to the Holy Spirit as the breath of God, we’d say he (so jarring for me to use ‘he’ these days) was closer than our breath. We also learned that meditation and breath work were dangerous, slippery slopes away from truth and could open us up
Like all trauma, religious trauma lives in our bodies. And like all trauma, we need bodily ways to process it. When you graze your knee, your body knows how to heal. When you’ve experienced trauma, your body knows how to heal. But for anyone who has spent time in spaces
I was tidying up my Google drive recently and came across a Word doc outlining a short talk I gave at the Uniting Church women’s conference in 2018. If you’ve read my eBook, my story of leaving church and then God as I had always known God, you’ll remember me referring to this. I was stunned to be asked, as at the time it had been years since I’d been to church.
We are spirit in flesh, breath in bodies, full of life and energy. What would change if you could connect with your body in this way, working with it not against it? What if it was the key to your healing and your joy?
Christmas can be a lot when you’re experiencing and healing from religious trauma. We experience heightened emotions, fear, anxiety and the weight of people’s expectations. Triggers can be more intense, from carols in the supermarket to painful memories associated with church or harmful practices and beliefs. Loneliness, inner conflict and
