Setting Intentions for the New Year

How to Begin Healing from Religious Trauma in 2024

Well, it’s the first week of 2024 and the holiday season is officially behind us! (Confession, though – I still have the Christmas tree and decorations up… still not quite ready to “un-Christmas” our space).  A lot of us are letting out a big exhale.  We survived the stress of buying presents, packed holiday schedules, and gathering with family over holiday meals.  We made it! 

But for some, 2024 has perhaps felt like a looming time marker on the horizon.  For those that have experienced religious trauma or faith deconstruction, the start of the new year may have been when you were putting off dealing with any of it.  Internal messages like “Just keep your head down and keep going.  Just get through the holidays and then we can start to unpack it all.  Just compartmentalize it until you have more mental and emotional bandwidth,” may have helped you get through periods of stress as the holidays approached or were in full swing.  

But now that you’ve made it through to the other side, you are realizing that this is the time you told yourself you would face it all – how rigid religion hurt you…how losing your faith community has felt like a death…how you don’t know what to believe anymore…how mad you are about some of the things church leaders said to you…or how upset with yourself you are that you didn’t exit sooner.

So, if you told yourself, “2024 will be the year I finally deal with my religious trauma,” the time has come 🙂  It can be a daunting task, though.  “Where do I even begin??  What if it gets worse before it gets better?  Will people even understand or think my trauma is real?”   

All of these questions and concerns are normal and valid.  Below are some intentions you can set for 2024 for your journey of healing from religious trauma or faith deconstruction that may help you stay the course.

I will center myself in my story and experiences.

This is something that comes up often in my practice working with survivors of religious trauma.  In rigid religion and conservative faith communities, people are taught to always put others first.  In other words, self always comes second (or third, or fourth, or fifth, etc…).  Messages like “Die to self” and “consider others better than yourself” are preached from the pulpit and considered virtuous behavior.  The problem with this is that it teaches us to NEVER consider ourselves… that our feelings, our needs and wants, our preferences, and our likes/dislikes don’t matter…and that considering ourselves, what we feel, and what we need is inherently wrong or sinful.

An important shift is to start centering yourself in your story.  If you were to think of yourself as the main character in your story, how did what happened affect YOU?  How do YOU feel about your church and its leaders?  How were YOU impacted by the toxic theology in your faith community?  Give yourself permission to have feelings about what experienced.  

I will create a lifestyle of embodiment.

It is a common experience in rigid religious communities to disconnect from your body. When you are hearing that you are inherently bad and need to resist your “sinful nature,” and your “sinful nature” resides in the body you inhabit, feelings become problematic. It is also problematic when emotions like anxiety or anger are labeled as sins. When we experience shallow breathing, rapid heart rate, tense muscles, a churning stomach, sweating, or dizziness (i.e. all symptoms of anxiety), but have been taught that anxiety is sinful and we shouldn’t be feeling it, we have no other choice than to turn away from our physical symptoms that are telling us we are experiencing an important emotion and disconnect from our bodies.  When we have to ignore or shut down our natural biological responses to stressful or unsafe situations because of the belief that we (and our bodies) are bad, we are missing crucial pieces of data about our wellbeing, what we need, and our safety.  

Creating a lifestyle of embodiment can look a variety of different ways, but basically anything that gets you mindful of your body or moving your body can help.  Examples might be yoga, exercise, stretching, dancing, singing, walking, breath work, massage therapy, etc.

I will give myself time and space to write about my religious trauma experiences.

When our religious trauma feels so overwhelming and we don’t know how to face it, a common defense is to ignore it or pretend it wasn’t as bad as it actually was.  If we don’t acknowledge the pain or distract ourselves from it, it can be as if it didn’t happen.  This strategy may work for a time, or get us through crisis points, but eventually, those feelings about what we experienced catch up.  Giving yourself permission to write or journal about your experiences can be a helpful way to get started processing it all. 

I will explore fun/pleasure.

Conservative religion preaches that most things are life or death matters – people are going to hell, and you must save yourself and also others from eternal damnation. Life is seen as a serious spiritual battleground where we are at war with the devil.  Allowing ourselves to have fun, play, be silly, experience pleasure, or let loose might be judged as frivolous, childish, irresponsible, or perhaps even sinful.  

Give yourself permission to engage in things that bring you joy and a sense of play.  This is going to look different person to person because we are all wired differently and have different interests, but some examples might be creative endeavors (painting, sculpting, photography), playing sports, learning a new language, rollerskating, or building sandcastles.

I will start therapy.

Finding a therapist who specializes in religious trauma or faith deconstruction can be a huge help in your healing journey.  Not only will they have expertise in the specific ways that religious and spiritual trauma affects people, but they will also be able to guide and support you through the complexities and heartbreak of losing your belief system and second family and having to rebuild both from the ground up.

If you are a survivor of religious trauma or are in the midst of faith deconstruction, I would love to support you on your healing journey.  Reach out today for a free consultation.