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what is good ex homies uh it's your boy
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Jacob Gooden and another week another
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ex- homeschoolers club that is the best
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ex- homeschoolers podcast this side of
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the internet and uh here we are it's me
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we're doing a solo today uh it's been a
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minute but uh I figured it's about time
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I don't think I've done one of these
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since last year and uh what are we going
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to talk about today we're actually going
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to talk about a book I've been reading
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called when religion hurts you this is
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by Laura e Anderson and this was a
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recommendation that came to me after I
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did my episode about uh
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deconstructing and uh so I'm going to
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get into that but before we do I got a
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quick favor to ask and that is this I'm
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launching a newsletter uh it's coming
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out I'm officially it's dropping this
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week okay first one's going out on
00:00:47
Friday I want to send it to you I want
00:00:49
to put it in your inbox and uh if you
00:00:51
want to be a part of that newsletter
00:00:54
there's going to be a link down in the
00:00:56
description to sign up get on the
00:00:57
waiting list it's not a waiting list but
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get on the email list and what's going
00:01:01
to be in the newsletter I promise I'm
00:01:03
not going to be spammy it's just going
00:01:04
to be episode stuff I'll take some notes
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on it I might you know have
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recommendations for books I'm reading
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for other podcasts I'm guessing on who
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knows we we're figuring this all out
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together okay so but if you want that in
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your inbox I'm hoping to do it weekly uh
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you'll want to sign up okay so again
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links in the description down below
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wherever you find links uh and uh yeah
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but let's get into it okay so this book
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wow um I finished it a couple hours ago
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of as of recording this and uh man oh
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man this book has been
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crazy
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so after I did my deconstruction episode
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I really I started to realize that there
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was some stuff that I really hadn't
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dealt with yet and uh and I'm so
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thankful this recommendation came in
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because uh because wow this the subline
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for this book is healing from religious
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trauma and the impact of high control
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religion and before you click off and go
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oh he's going to go on a rant about how
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awful religion is and I'm still a
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Christian and whatever like this book is
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genuinely I think even if I was still a
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Christian I would have found this book
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extremely helpful just from a mental
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health perspective of like putting names
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to things that I was experiencing even
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when I was in church and really
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wrestling with
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um being in church because I think
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mental health can be a little bit
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separated from our religious experiences
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um and uh but let's let's get into it I
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want to unpack there's a lot of chapters
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in this book I think there's like 13 or
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14 chapters I want to unpack some of
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them some of the things that stuck out
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the most to me so I'm not going to I'm
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not going to hit everything I highly
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again pick up the book read it yourself
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give me your thoughts uh that's what the
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book club's for um you know that's what
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emailing me shooting me a DM on socials
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as before okay but I want to just kind
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of hit on some of the things that spoke
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the most to me the number one thing that
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I ended up reading SL listening to this
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chapter four different times because it
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was so impactful there's a whole chapter
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about nervous system and it's called
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nervous system 101 and then there's a
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later chapter that kind of is like
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aligning or like balancing out your
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nervous system but man oh man that was
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super helpful because
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she talked
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about everyone knows about fight ORF
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flight for the most part right it's our
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reaction to when we're in danger right
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we either run away or we fight the
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threat right well she talked about two
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other ways and that's freeze and fwn
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right so we already talked about fight
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that's you know intimidate the threat
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right flight is you run away from the
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threat then there's Fawn which is to
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appease the threat right and you kind of
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like bend a knee a little bit submit and
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then there's freeze which is like make
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the threat lose interest right and
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that's just kind of like shut up be
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silent you know move on kind of a thing
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and man it just our nervous system kicks
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on when we feel in
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danger and I think in church a lot of
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times we're taught that there's this
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constant danger that we have to be aware
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of at all times right and we're just
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always on edge of like spiritual warfare
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and the devil and people outside of our
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religion and like all this stuff and so
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we're stuck in this on position and
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we're constantly reminded about this
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threat right the devil wants to trip you
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up and
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like but we're not designed to actually
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like exist in that state of like
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heightened awareness always right we're
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supposed to like come down from that and
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so the reason this really hit me was
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because when I started kind of when I
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left church I was in college and when I
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said I left church I just mean I wasn't
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going to church as frequently I had kind
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of burned out I was going uh like six
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times a week at that point I was like
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serving in Ministry stuff and bible
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studies and all this kind of thing and I
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was just exhausted um on top of that
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doing college right existing as a a
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grown adult for the first time ever and
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so I just was so tired all the time and
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I so I was like okay you know what
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church kind of has to take somewhat of a
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backseat I'm going to go when I can I'm
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still going to like read my Bible still
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Christian I just need a break and uh and
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I had met with a pastor and he had kind
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of said like something similar he was
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like I think you should just take a
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break right and just like take a few
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weeks off he was saying take a few weeks
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off I ended up taking over two years off
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but it it was just kind of it for the
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first time ever I kind of relaxed a
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little bit and my like my defenses went
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down a little bit and I just like I did
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didn't have this heightened State I
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didn't have as many people in my life I
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think screaming at me that there was
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always this threat this this imminent
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threat in my life and
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um and so I was starting to recognize
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because when you exist in that state of
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like always on right you're like I don't
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know if every anyone's ever had this but
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like you get in an argument with someone
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and you see red right and it's like you
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wake up from it it's almost just like
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this it's like you black out almost
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right and you wake up and then you find
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out later like you you told the person
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off like really
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awfully I was having kind of that right
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I was I had come out of this stage of
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like I was always on and I had struggled
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to determine what was like a major
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versus A Minor Threat in my life and so
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I was like finally
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relaxing and then more recently what
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I've realized is going back again to
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like fight flight freeze and fawn is
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this kind of like what are my
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reactions to when there are threats in
00:06:56
my life right and I felt mostly I think
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into uh flight and fawn and freeze to be
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quite honest I'm not a big fighter I
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never have been I don't like making
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people upset very often um and so I tend
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to either run away or I just don't say
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anything or I just kind of like roll
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over right and that's that's its own
00:07:22
problems and it's right um and I'm
00:07:25
trying to look at that a little bit
00:07:27
differently now and kind of actually put
00:07:29
a name to it you know but again kind of
00:07:32
aligning with this whole understanding
00:07:34
of like my nervous system for so many
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years was just in the stuck on position
00:07:39
right and
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um and now having like deconstructed my
00:07:46
faith um you know the political times we
00:07:49
live in having a lot more conversations
00:07:51
with people I've realized that like
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especially when I'm talking to someone
00:07:55
who still very much exists inside of
00:07:58
religion sometimes it feels like talking
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to a brick wall not always but a lot of
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times and I've been wondering why that
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is right they get really defensive and
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and this book has kind of helped me
00:08:09
again recognize that of like they're in
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the on position and maybe I'm not and so
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I don't feel like I'm coming at them
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with a threat right but maybe they're in
00:08:21
that on position where they're
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struggling to determine that this is not
00:08:24
a major threat to them this is just me
00:08:26
pointing something out right or asking
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questions
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um cuz that's where I exist right now
00:08:31
you know as an agnostic
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that's I'm in the question asking era of
00:08:37
my life I guess is the way I look at it
00:08:40
and so anyway that's the nervous system
00:08:44
that again super impactful for me and
00:08:47
just recognizing and again putting more
00:08:50
words and and Concepts together for me
00:08:53
to kind of sit here and go okay this is
00:08:55
why I react this way and this is you
00:08:57
know when I actually do need to
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Implement like fight flight frakas Fawn
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right trying to look at that and assess
00:09:04
the major versus minor threats so that
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was kind of the first chapter that
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really stuck out of me the second one
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and I'm probably going to go on this for
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a little while was grieving the life you
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once
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had
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and this was a hard chapter for me I
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actually I'll be honest with you guys I
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tried to record this episode yesterday
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and I was getting super emotional doing
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it because I had written out my notes
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and I was kind of talking about this
00:09:32
concept that I just like wanted to go
00:09:35
curl up in a corner and cry about
00:09:37
it so my understanding of grief for a
00:09:39
long time was that was primarily tied to
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the death of someone right a loved one
00:09:47
someone precious to you and I kind of I
00:09:50
think also had some preconceived notions
00:09:52
about what grief looked like right like
00:09:54
how long is it you know and it it varies
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right it's kind of dependent on maybe
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how close you are with the
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person and you know and then what does
00:10:04
it look like it's mostly sad right but
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you're like when you're when you exist
00:10:08
in a lot of religious circles there's a
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happiness to it right because the
00:10:12
suffering is over they're in a better
00:10:14
place if you believe in an afterlife
00:10:16
right and so it's kind of like this
00:10:18
weird you could be sad and mad and happy
00:10:22
and just joyful and like all these weird
00:10:25
emotions come into play and
00:10:28
so one of the things I've been unpacking
00:10:31
a lot more recently in my life is kind
00:10:33
of like I have three significant deaths
00:10:36
in my in the last decade of my life or
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so and and how the I wanted to look at
00:10:42
how the grief in all of those has been
00:10:43
very different right and
00:10:46
so so let's talk about it I guess in
00:10:49
2014 literally the week before I
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graduated high school my my grandma good
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she died just like suddenly out of
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nowhere she was like completely healthy
00:10:59
or so we thought and they just died on
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like a Saturday morning kind of a
00:11:05
deal
00:11:07
and with that death I held this weird
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regret for a long time because just a
00:11:15
few days before her death she had tried
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to call me and I had ignored it because
00:11:18
I was like I'm going to see her in a
00:11:19
week it's not a big deal I was busy with
00:11:22
something else and I didn't call her
00:11:23
back and I was like it's not a big deal
00:11:26
so for a long time I held this regret of
00:11:31
wishing I had just picked up the phun
00:11:33
right and had been able to have this
00:11:35
last conversation with this
00:11:37
person
00:11:41
and but I so I was kind of angry right I
00:11:46
had this like anger grief I had this
00:11:48
sadness right I I was like it was the
00:11:51
first
00:11:52
grandparent to die for me
00:11:57
and it was sad it was just really really
00:11:59
hard it was like I hadn't experienced
00:12:02
that before right and I was 18 and
00:12:05
um I think what was hard too was like we
00:12:08
weren't super
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close but I held this regret right
00:12:14
because we could have been closer and if
00:12:15
I just picked the phone maybe that would
00:12:17
have been the conversation and I think I
00:12:19
still hold on to some of this regret um
00:12:21
working on it okay
00:12:25
uh but it was a long time before I
00:12:27
really felt I think any kind of like
00:12:29
sense of normaly about that whenever I
00:12:33
would come up and i' think about it
00:12:34
right I just kind of would get sad and
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upset a little bit and
00:12:39
so so yeah for a long time I just was
00:12:42
grieving it I think so much so that it
00:12:45
led into the next death and that was uh
00:12:48
that was my nanny in 2017 she died and
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that's my mom's
00:12:54
mom
00:12:56
and very different situation
00:12:59
that
00:13:00
death we saw coming um she'd been
00:13:03
diagnosed with ALS it was the slow
00:13:05
progression from like being completely
00:13:08
there to having trouble walking to if
00:13:10
you don't know what ALS is it's l
00:13:11
Garrick's disease basically just shuts
00:13:13
down your body piece by piece and so so
00:13:16
we had already kind of gotten to this
00:13:18
point of like it was hard to talk to her
00:13:20
if at all she was by the end we couldn't
00:13:23
even talk to her um she couldn't walk
00:13:25
she was in a wheelchair you know all
00:13:27
these things and so the the grandma that
00:13:28
I'd grown up with was was dead long
00:13:30
before she actually died um but that
00:13:35
Grandma I was very close
00:13:37
with I would spend most of my summer
00:13:40
with her she was there for like
00:13:42
everything in my life birthdays and
00:13:45
theater stuff and holidays
00:13:49
and I I joke with my cousins that I'm
00:13:52
her favorite
00:13:53
grandson it's just true if you guys are
00:13:56
listening um it's just true I was her
00:13:58
favorite grandkid can't convince me
00:13:59
otherwise um but we had this very
00:14:02
special bond and we just I don't know
00:14:05
there's something about our spirits that
00:14:06
just really aligned and
00:14:08
so when she died I think it dragged up
00:14:12
again that grief from the first Grandma
00:14:14
passing
00:14:15
away who I had sobbed over right for
00:14:19
years for three years at that point um
00:14:21
and then this Grandma I just don't I
00:14:23
nanny I just don't remember crying that
00:14:25
much about it I remember being sad and I
00:14:27
remember being angry and and
00:14:31
but I was it was hard to for me to shed
00:14:34
tears right and I feel like I numbed
00:14:38
myself for that
00:14:41
death and I just kind of like buckled up
00:14:45
and just did the thing right I just was
00:14:48
like I'm a man just pushed through it
00:14:50
and that that was unhealthy um to say
00:14:53
the least the other thing that's
00:14:55
interesting about a lot of about those
00:14:58
two deaths in particular is that they're
00:14:59
also like right around big events in my
00:15:03
life so 2014 graduating high school
00:15:05
about to move to college 2017 I
00:15:07
literally graduated
00:15:09
college drove directly from college to
00:15:13
my grandma's house saw her for a few
00:15:16
weeks and then she died right before my
00:15:18
21st
00:15:19
birthday so big milestones in there also
00:15:23
mixed in so again you've got this crazy
00:15:26
mix of emotions of like you have the
00:15:27
sadness and you have the grief and you
00:15:29
have the anger and you have the the the
00:15:31
mad right and the overwhelming feelings
00:15:34
mixed in with all these Happy Feelings
00:15:37
of like I'm accomplishing things in my
00:15:39
life I'm moving forward um and then you
00:15:42
tack on again the religious aspect of
00:15:44
like they're in a better place you know
00:15:47
there's no more suffering and and and
00:15:49
all of that it's the we celebration of
00:15:50
life right and joy and happiness and
00:15:53
stuff so it's just a weird place to be
00:15:57
in and then 2020 to I lost my grandpa
00:16:01
goodon again kind of suddenly
00:16:05
um got a phone call that he had a stroke
00:16:09
and was in the hospital was basically
00:16:11
non-responsive and it was just a matter
00:16:13
of time before he
00:16:17
passed and the grief for that one was so
00:16:21
much different
00:16:24
because there was no
00:16:26
sadness actually I take that
00:16:29
back it didn't feel like there was
00:16:32
sadness originally I was angry I was
00:16:34
really mad not because he was dead well
00:16:38
kind of because he was dead not
00:16:40
because he had
00:16:42
died or that I missed him and I loved
00:16:44
him so much and and stuff like that but
00:16:46
because he was someone who had hurt me
00:16:49
who had hurt members of my family and I
00:16:52
we never I never got the resolution that
00:16:55
I wanted and so there was this like
00:16:58
sadness about the fact that that was
00:16:59
never going to be
00:17:01
resolved now what I've come to learn is
00:17:03
that you don't need another person to
00:17:05
always heal the wounds within yourself
00:17:07
right that's a choice you get to work on
00:17:09
for
00:17:10
yourself but at the time didn't maybe
00:17:13
100% know that so I was just angry and
00:17:16
even like at his funeral and stuff it
00:17:18
was just a lot of anger a lot of anger
00:17:21
um so was my first time back in a church
00:17:23
for a while so that was its own set of
00:17:27
things um
00:17:31
so to hear that this person who would
00:17:34
hurt me who' caused me grief who would
00:17:36
hurt my family you hear people say like
00:17:39
he's in a better place there's no more
00:17:40
suffering he's a good guy like all this
00:17:42
stuff when like that's not your reality
00:17:44
that's its
00:17:46
own you know Whirlwind of emotions right
00:17:51
and cuz that's just not how I knew him
00:17:54
right so the grief from that one was
00:17:56
again anger so you have like you know
00:17:59
2014 grief of like sadness and regret
00:18:03
2017 you have this numbing grief and
00:18:07
then 2022 you have this like Angry grief
00:18:09
right so just two three very different
00:18:13
looking grief
00:18:15
Seasons but that's in a nutshell what I
00:18:18
kind of thought grief was right it was
00:18:20
just associated with like death
00:18:23
um and one of the things that got
00:18:26
brought up in this book is that there's
00:18:29
these different types of grief that we
00:18:32
experience and it was like an aha moment
00:18:35
for me so we're kind of jumping a little
00:18:38
bit those obviously those deaths very
00:18:41
impactful for me still working through
00:18:44
them if you can't
00:18:47
tell but then now I'm I'm starting to
00:18:50
have these emotions I'm trying to
00:18:51
recognize especially now starting this
00:18:53
podcast and talking to a bunch of you
00:18:56
and and learning your stories and recog
00:18:58
ing things within my own education and
00:19:01
upbringing things that I would do
00:19:03
differently
00:19:06
um I I have had these strong emotions um
00:19:12
in upset in my life recently and I've
00:19:15
been experiencing like this weird
00:19:16
burnout and just kind of
00:19:18
like weirdly emotional all the time you
00:19:22
know the littlest things set you off
00:19:24
right I haven't had 100% the tools and
00:19:26
the words to kind of like FL flush it
00:19:29
out and
00:19:30
so but this book brought up the idea of
00:19:33
other grief right so a few of them just
00:19:37
to highlight the few that I I have
00:19:39
recognized I'm struggling with is like
00:19:42
the grief of childhood and as
00:19:46
adolescence and this is one I'm still
00:19:48
kind of unpacking right I'm kind of like
00:19:49
determining I don't even know if I have
00:19:51
this right but it's it's kind of this
00:19:53
idea that like I wasn't afforded certain
00:19:56
things in my childhood and my
00:19:57
adolescence that I should have been
00:20:00
given and being upset about that and so
00:20:02
for
00:20:04
me and for I think a lot of
00:20:06
homeschoolers one of the things we
00:20:07
grieve is sometimes education some of us
00:20:09
don't have the best
00:20:10
education this is why I'm on the fence
00:20:12
about it because I don't think my
00:20:13
education was that bad but there are
00:20:15
definitely things in my education that I
00:20:17
wish had done been done better
00:20:21
right
00:20:24
so so I don't know Science and History
00:20:27
are those main two
00:20:29
things in
00:20:31
there but I know for some of my friends
00:20:34
um they're forced to grow up really
00:20:37
quickly homeschool families tend to have
00:20:39
a lot of kids right and sometimes older
00:20:41
kids you know teach teach the younger
00:20:44
kids and parent the younger kids so to
00:20:46
speak and I think there I grew up in a
00:20:49
house I remember I've recognized this
00:20:52
Within Myself for a long
00:20:54
time my sister and I were always kind of
00:20:57
applauded for being well
00:21:00
behaved and I've wrestled with that a a
00:21:03
little bit because yeah to some degree
00:21:04
yeah you want kids to be well behaved
00:21:06
but at the same degree
00:21:08
like what does that mean right and again
00:21:12
this is why I'm I'm on the fence about
00:21:13
whether I'm grieving this or not but
00:21:17
just some things I've been thinking
00:21:20
about the the next thing I'm just going
00:21:22
to move on moving on cuz we're still un
00:21:25
packing that one
00:21:27
okay griev
00:21:29
sexuality and
00:21:32
uh this is an interesting one as someone
00:21:34
who grew
00:21:36
up imp Purity
00:21:39
culture is this
00:21:43
like upset feeling sometimes about the
00:21:47
lack of sex head right
00:21:51
and something that I've realized is that
00:21:54
before I really
00:21:57
had really inkling of what sex was any
00:22:01
sex education I was already being taught
00:22:04
like the Purity culture education that
00:22:06
sex and sexuality were like bad words
00:22:09
you know only within the context of
00:22:11
marriage and and things like that and
00:22:14
so without that original context of
00:22:19
understanding what sex is how does it
00:22:22
operate what is it meant
00:22:25
for it kind of distorts everything right
00:22:29
so then when when you are given that
00:22:31
Fuller sex education it's like confusing
00:22:35
because you already have this
00:22:36
preconceived notion of it's bad or it's
00:22:38
evil or it's wicked right except for in
00:22:41
the context of marriage and only between
00:22:42
a man and a
00:22:45
woman and
00:22:46
so so I would argue right that we learn
00:22:49
them out of order right I think you need
00:22:50
to have a better understanding of of sex
00:22:55
before you can have the conversation
00:22:56
about perod culture I don't think
00:22:58
everything inside of I this is a
00:23:00
controversial take right here I don't
00:23:01
think everything inside of Purity
00:23:03
culture is like bad um from the
00:23:07
perspective
00:23:11
of I don't think you should just have
00:23:13
sex to have sex right I think it should
00:23:15
it's more than that it's a connection
00:23:16
with somebody this a de it's a deeper
00:23:18
connection with somebody um that's the
00:23:20
like one golden good thing I pull out of
00:23:23
Purity culture
00:23:24
basically
00:23:26
um but yeah I realized that I've kind of
00:23:31
like been grieving that in a way because
00:23:34
I think there's a lot of lost years
00:23:37
maybe not that many last years but
00:23:39
there's a lot of teenage years where I
00:23:40
think not that I should have been
00:23:43
experimenting with sex or anything like
00:23:45
that but I think it should not have been
00:23:48
this big bad scary thing it should have
00:23:51
actually been something that we had
00:23:52
conversation about right and there was
00:23:55
some back and forth and exchanging of
00:23:56
ideas right um and so I agree with that
00:24:00
aspect of it it's like why didn't we why
00:24:01
weren't we talking about this why wasn't
00:24:03
this an open concept um and topic
00:24:07
um so because even to to to this day
00:24:10
right it's still difficult to talk about
00:24:12
sex right it's just Taboo it's you know
00:24:16
but um yeah so
00:24:19
again we're still unpacking right I just
00:24:21
finished this book an hour or two ago
00:24:23
right um so a lot of this is still
00:24:27
mulling around and we're still on I
00:24:28
think it's years before any of it really
00:24:32
becomes fully clear but um but let's
00:24:36
move on okay next one grieving our view
00:24:40
of others in the
00:24:42
world this was one I instantly clocked
00:24:45
of like being sad about stuff and I've
00:24:48
kind of known this I think maybe for a
00:24:50
little while um when I got to college it
00:24:53
was the first time I ever really
00:24:56
experienced a wider divers
00:24:59
diverse group of people right and I
00:25:02
moved California beachs of California to
00:25:06
little toown Illinois right off the
00:25:08
border of St Louis it was right um at
00:25:13
the height of
00:25:16
uh some some massive shootings that were
00:25:19
really nasty um there's a lot of racial
00:25:22
tension and and things like that um
00:25:29
but I had these weird I I recognized
00:25:32
pretty quickly I had these weird views
00:25:34
about people and I'm thankful that I met
00:25:36
people in college who called me out on
00:25:37
some of it uh to be honest
00:25:42
uh but who were safe enough to want to
00:25:45
have that conversation with me and push
00:25:47
me to be like less racist and and less
00:25:51
Rel religiously Prejudice right to
00:25:54
towards other people um because that was
00:25:57
just something I had I had grown up
00:25:59
again we go back
00:26:01
to kind of that like teaching of there's
00:26:03
always this enemy The Outsider is the
00:26:06
enemy um you know they want to pull you
00:26:09
away from God they they are you know
00:26:11
being led by the devil they want to take
00:26:13
you down that path right and so that
00:26:15
that was my view of anything that wasn't
00:26:18
the same as me right we get we attract
00:26:21
sameness we're attracted to sameness a
00:26:23
lot of times um because it feels safe
00:26:26
and so I went long time I think existing
00:26:30
in that um and even to this day it's
00:26:34
still easier for me to go find sameness
00:26:36
with people than it is for me to push
00:26:38
myself outside of those boundaries of of
00:26:41
comfortability um and and to have just a
00:26:44
a broader view of the outside world and
00:26:46
that like people are not out to get me a
00:26:49
lot of times um you know they're also
00:26:51
struggling with their own things and
00:26:54
when I can recognize that in people I
00:26:56
can have compassion for them right
00:27:00
so and understanding so that's kind of
00:27:04
that um grieving the good okay this is
00:27:08
the last kind of grief piece I want to
00:27:10
touch on I know the section's kind of
00:27:12
been robust um and maybe a little all
00:27:15
all over the place so I appreciate you
00:27:17
guys if you're still listening and kind
00:27:20
of piecing anything together from my
00:27:22
what seems like incoherent rants
00:27:24
sometimes um but grieving the good is
00:27:27
kind of this next this last piece of
00:27:29
grief I want to talk about and
00:27:31
that's man that has been an interesting
00:27:34
one to unpack so so grieving the good is
00:27:39
coming to this place of recognizing now
00:27:42
that I've left
00:27:44
religion maybe it wasn't all bad right I
00:27:47
think we we tend to have this pendulum
00:27:50
effect when we're inside of religion or
00:27:52
we we exit religion where we
00:27:55
exist let me back up religion tends to
00:27:59
exist Christian the Christianity that I
00:28:01
grew up in existed a lot inside this
00:28:03
binary of good and bad okay so when I'm
00:28:07
in Christianity this is all good this is
00:28:10
good all of this is bad right we just
00:28:12
talked about this you know anybody
00:28:13
outside of it anybody that's not the
00:28:15
same is bad different evil Wicked don't
00:28:19
we we're over here stay in your lane
00:28:21
kind of a
00:28:22
thing and when I aced religion it would
00:28:25
have been really easy to pendulum just
00:28:27
to the other side right and just it just
00:28:29
switch them right so this is no longer
00:28:32
bad this is good this is
00:28:34
bad and what's taken a really long time
00:28:37
to kind of come around to is that there
00:28:39
was still good that existed in my
00:28:41
religious
00:28:44
experience I mourn the times of like I
00:28:47
find myself saying this a lot I'm like I
00:28:49
mourn like playing on the worship team
00:28:51
right being in the worship band and like
00:28:53
the music and that that aspect right I
00:28:55
miss like after church lunch with
00:28:57
friends and like I miss this and I you
00:29:00
know the community aspect and like
00:29:03
seeing people every week at this
00:29:04
determined time and this determin
00:29:06
location that was like safe I'm also one
00:29:09
of those people more introverted I like
00:29:12
the same you know I want a regimen and
00:29:14
routine that kind of a thing so religion
00:29:17
kind of played my favor in that way and
00:29:19
so when I
00:29:22
left well I won't say I necessarily the
00:29:25
pendulum swung all the way to the other
00:29:26
side I will say
00:29:29
that I felt lonely right I I
00:29:34
grieved I missed those things I missed
00:29:38
the community I
00:29:40
missed the the
00:29:43
safety of a lot of
00:29:45
it and I felt like I was
00:29:48
alone I didn't have those things
00:29:50
provided to me any longer by an
00:29:52
organized religion they were they were
00:29:54
things that I had to learn that I had to
00:29:57
seek out for for
00:29:59
myself now the problem with sometimes
00:30:01
seeking those things out is like one
00:30:04
that's like really [ __ ]
00:30:06
hard um but two the ability to trust
00:30:12
people when you exit religion can be
00:30:16
really
00:30:17
hard because I've been vulnerable with
00:30:20
all these people right who have existed
00:30:22
inside this
00:30:24
church they know some of my deepest
00:30:26
darkest Secrets maybe not all of them
00:30:28
but they know a good amount right they
00:30:30
know me as a
00:30:33
person
00:30:35
um
00:30:37
and not that this was my experience but
00:30:40
I know that you know sometimes when you
00:30:42
exit religion there's kind of this
00:30:45
excommunication involved I experienced
00:30:48
less of that when I exited religion I
00:30:50
experienced more of that when I left for
00:30:52
college right I just wasn't in people's
00:30:54
lives anymore on a regular basis and
00:30:56
they kind of forgot about me and so I
00:30:57
kind of
00:30:58
to be honest kind of dealt with that
00:31:00
already and that feeling of
00:31:02
excommunication out of a group of people
00:31:04
but I had trouble like when I came
00:31:08
back or I'm sorry I had trouble once I
00:31:12
left religion 100% to like trust people
00:31:16
because I also felt unsafe trusting
00:31:19
people who still existed in that
00:31:21
religion I didn't want to tell them what
00:31:23
I was thinking or what I was doing or
00:31:26
anything like that because I was afraid
00:31:28
that they were still going to be like
00:31:30
well that's against God's word that's
00:31:31
you know you should come back you know
00:31:33
church is great this is you know and I
00:31:35
was going to get sucked back in and
00:31:39
so it it's taken a long time and I I'll
00:31:42
be honest I don't think I'm 100% there
00:31:44
always with people but I'm I'm learning
00:31:46
to trust much
00:31:50
more um and have faith in people be
00:31:54
vulnerable with them I mean hey I'm
00:31:56
talking to you know how many people
00:31:58
watch listen to this you
00:32:00
know you're you're getting it raw okay
00:32:04
um and this show has been a great
00:32:06
opportunity to test those Waters of
00:32:08
trusting people again right we're remain
00:32:10
vulnerable on the
00:32:12
show so that was kind of grief again I
00:32:16
know super long-winded I apologize I
00:32:19
hope it was somewhat coherent I hope you
00:32:21
got something out of it there's one last
00:32:24
chapter I want to talk about before we
00:32:26
wrap things up and that is boundaries
00:32:29
built on a foundation of self trust and
00:32:32
self-compassion and
00:32:35
so man self trust and
00:32:39
self-compassion where do I even want to
00:32:41
start with
00:32:43
this I have realized particularly this
00:32:47
year but for sure at the end of last
00:32:50
year that I do I use I struggle with
00:32:55
using degrading language towards myself
00:32:58
okay there's a voice in my head that
00:33:00
tells me I'm stupid no one's listening
00:33:03
to you like you messed up
00:33:06
again um just like nasty stuff stuff I
00:33:09
would never say to just like a normal
00:33:11
person right like I just I would
00:33:14
never do that to you I wouldn't you know
00:33:22
um even even if I was being blunt I I
00:33:25
just don't think I would I would do that
00:33:27
kind of a thing at least in a at least
00:33:29
in a degrading way let's say that you
00:33:31
know it's one thing to just be like oh
00:33:33
you're being stupid right and kind of
00:33:34
laugh it off but
00:33:37
um but I've been sitting with it and
00:33:39
kind of journaling on it and mulling
00:33:41
over this like where's this voice coming
00:33:43
from what is this thing right because
00:33:44
it's really cropped up a lot more
00:33:46
recently for me
00:33:50
um and I've thought back a few times to
00:33:54
experiences inside of church maybe
00:33:58
they gave me some of this and so there's
00:34:00
just one instance
00:34:02
in that came back
00:34:05
recently uh when I was a kid I went to a
00:34:07
Baptist
00:34:08
Church we had uh we're very legalistic
00:34:12
in the way we ran things we had like
00:34:14
church Council and we all voted on
00:34:16
everything was like church Run Like You
00:34:19
Know by democracy kind of a thing and um
00:34:23
anyway we had a church meeting and uh we
00:34:27
were discussing how to attract young
00:34:29
adults and young families to our church
00:34:32
keep in mind I'm
00:34:33
probably early teenage years anywhere I
00:34:37
would say anywhere from like 11 to 13 at
00:34:40
this point somewhere in there um and I
00:34:43
had been going to this church for uh man
00:34:45
at least since I was like seven eight
00:34:47
years old something like that um I got
00:34:49
baptized in this church I like served at
00:34:52
this church you know I've done it all at
00:34:54
this church I've stacked chairs I've
00:34:55
served on the worship team I run
00:34:58
PowerPoint you know all all this stuff
00:35:00
um children's church all that stuff and
00:35:03
so I spoke up I gave my opinion right I
00:35:06
said hey I think we need this right I
00:35:07
was a big advocate for like we needed to
00:35:09
update worship we'd sing a lot of hymns
00:35:11
was really old school lots of organ lots
00:35:13
of piano and I remember this church
00:35:15
Elder basically telling me like that's
00:35:18
not it like don't listen to him that's
00:35:21
like he doesn't know he's talking about
00:35:23
and
00:35:24
uh and when this thought when this
00:35:28
memory kind of like came back to me I
00:35:29
was like Bingo that's it right that's
00:35:31
like where one of those mean comments
00:35:32
comes from it's like sit down like no
00:35:34
one's listening to you like shut up kind
00:35:36
of comes from potentially partly
00:35:39
that
00:35:43
and I was like
00:35:46
damn that like hurts right but the thing
00:35:50
that's been great about recognizing that
00:35:53
memory has been that that voice now in
00:35:56
my head doesn't sound like me any longer
00:35:59
so when it crops up it doesn't sound
00:36:01
like my voice it sounds like this
00:36:03
crotchety old man um and it's a lot
00:36:07
easier to tell it to leave me alone or
00:36:10
that like that opinion doesn't
00:36:13
matter
00:36:16
and so there's that the other thing
00:36:20
growing up in church as an Evangelical
00:36:23
Christian I realize too that a lot of
00:36:25
our faith is based on this idea of
00:36:28
humans are evil they're Wicked like
00:36:32
without God they
00:36:34
like can't make the right decision
00:36:37
basically
00:36:38
right
00:36:40
and we could never choose good right we
00:36:42
would always choose the wrong choice
00:36:44
without
00:36:46
God and so these kind of go into like
00:36:50
teaching yourself not to trust yourself
00:36:52
and not to show compassion to yourself
00:36:53
because you're like not deserving of
00:36:54
those things right like you can't trust
00:36:56
yourself because you can't actually make
00:36:57
a smart decision right and you can't
00:36:59
show yourself compassion because you
00:37:01
just actually don't deserve to have that
00:37:04
compassion and
00:37:06
so again we go back to that voice in the
00:37:09
head that's saying you're stupid saying
00:37:11
like I can't believe you've done that
00:37:13
right I can't trust you to do anything
00:37:16
correctly it's like
00:37:19
damn okay again where are those voices
00:37:22
coming from who who are those voices
00:37:26
right and once you kind of sure to
00:37:27
recognize that it's not your own voice
00:37:29
saying those things it's it's somebody
00:37:30
else who's been kind of feeding That
00:37:32
Into You becomes a little bit easier to
00:37:36
like ignore it or at least like
00:37:40
recognize I mean the recognition that
00:37:42
it's not you is like huge let me just
00:37:44
say that right off the bat because it
00:37:46
then for me it just no longer sounds
00:37:48
like
00:37:48
me so I wanted to read something from
00:37:53
the book
00:37:55
um she references ber Brown this the
00:37:58
cool thing about this book is there's
00:38:00
just lots of resources within here like
00:38:01
I have a whole another book list like
00:38:03
just literally based off of the
00:38:05
resources in here um and some of it is
00:38:08
like psychology like uh you know uh
00:38:14
experiments not experiments but you know
00:38:15
like tests and and and results and stuff
00:38:18
like that um and some of it is uh some
00:38:22
of it is like other books about you know
00:38:26
PTSD and trauma and all those types of
00:38:28
things and so
00:38:30
anyway again pick this up read this book
00:38:33
so here let me get let me flip to this
00:38:35
page where are we almost there almost
00:38:39
there here we go okay so she references
00:38:43
beray Brown this is from Super Soul
00:38:46
sessions the anatomy of trust which is a
00:38:48
video series she
00:38:51
did and brne outlines these seven key
00:38:55
components of trust and so they are are
00:38:57
as follows okay here's the seven things
00:39:00
you need to have a healthy
00:39:03
trust um yeah healthy trustful like
00:39:06
relationship with someone including
00:39:08
yourself right you need to have these
00:39:09
with yourself so number one is
00:39:12
boundaries I respect my boundaries and
00:39:14
when I'm not clear about what's okay and
00:39:16
not okay I reflect I'm willing to say no
00:39:20
do I respect my own boundaries was I
00:39:22
clear about what's okay and not
00:39:25
okay reliability
00:39:29
you do what you say you'll do this means
00:39:31
staying aware of your compet competenc
00:39:34
competencies can't talk oh my gosh uh
00:39:37
competencies and limitations so you
00:39:39
don't overpromise and are able to
00:39:41
deliver on commitments and balance
00:39:43
competing priorities am I reliable do I
00:39:47
do what I say I was going to do number
00:39:49
three is accountability do you own your
00:39:52
mistakes apologize and make
00:39:54
amends so do I own my mistakes do I
00:39:57
apologize and do I make
00:40:00
amends number four is the Vault you
00:40:03
don't share information or experiences
00:40:05
that are not yours to
00:40:07
share so do I respect the Vault for
00:40:09
myself and for others and do I share
00:40:13
appropriately next one is integrity you
00:40:16
choose courage over comfort you choose
00:40:18
what is right over what is fun fast and
00:40:21
easy and you choose to practice your
00:40:23
values rather than simply professing
00:40:25
them so do I act for from a place of
00:40:29
Integrity number six is non-judgmental I
00:40:32
can ask for what I need and others can
00:40:34
ask for what they need we can talk about
00:40:37
how we feel without judgment do I ask
00:40:40
for what I
00:40:41
need so and then these are I realized I
00:40:44
didn't explain how this list is set up
00:40:45
very well but the scriptor and then
00:40:47
these questions to ask yourself of do I
00:40:49
ask for what I need am I non-judgmental
00:40:51
towards myself about needing help you
00:40:54
cannot judge yourself for needing help
00:40:56
and not judge others for needing
00:40:58
help and then number seven is giving the
00:41:01
most generous assumption you extend the
00:41:04
most generous interpretation possible
00:41:06
for the intentions words and actions of
00:41:08
yourself giving the benefit of the doubt
00:41:11
so do I give myself the benefit of the
00:41:13
doubt am I generous in my assumption
00:41:14
about myself right these are the
00:41:16
questions we need to ask
00:41:22
ourselves when you can start to kind of
00:41:25
heal these things right inside of
00:41:26
yourself and figure out this trust
00:41:29
situation build this healthy trust
00:41:31
within yourself you know I'm reading
00:41:32
this and I'm like recognizing these own
00:41:34
things in my in myself as I'm doing
00:41:37
it
00:41:42
um it's hard it's not easy like like
00:41:46
this is a lifelong journey a lot of us
00:41:49
are going to be on to to do this stuff
00:41:51
right it's not going to be perfect it's
00:41:53
going to be really
00:41:55
messy um it's going to be really messy
00:41:58
for me I just know that about myself
00:42:00
because for so long I think I've told
00:42:02
myself like you're not good enough and I
00:42:04
don't trust myself I don't trust my
00:42:06
intuitions
00:42:09
right and so bringing all of that into
00:42:12
alignment is going to be really tough
00:42:15
right and so once I get there this is
00:42:18
one of my goals for 2025 is hopefully
00:42:21
getting closer and closer to having more
00:42:24
self trust and self-compassion but is
00:42:27
kind of set being able to set those new
00:42:29
boundaries for myself right and ask
00:42:31
myself what is it that I need right
00:42:33
listening to what my body is like
00:42:37
needing from me and so
00:42:41
um you know and you can't really have
00:42:43
healthy boundaries without having that
00:42:46
trust and compassion for yourself and
00:42:48
so you
00:42:51
know I'm getting there let's just I'll
00:42:53
leave it at that okay I'm getting there
00:42:55
now before we leave this thing I got to
00:42:59
touch on boundaries just a little bit
00:43:02
because I've looked at boundaries I
00:43:04
think wrong for a really long time um
00:43:06
and I knew that 2025 going into 2025 I
00:43:09
knew it was going to be the year of
00:43:10
boundaries they're shifting in my career
00:43:13
shifting in my personal
00:43:15
life um the shifting Within Myself
00:43:19
um and and that's like a big thing to
00:43:22
recognize because for a long time I
00:43:23
always felt like boundaries were these
00:43:25
like inflexible rigid set things right
00:43:28
again we go back to that analogy right
00:43:30
church is good everything outside of it
00:43:32
is bad okay all the Lessons Learned in
00:43:34
church good follow the rules do the
00:43:36
things they're very set they're no
00:43:39
there's no changing it's just that is
00:43:41
what it is right so there these
00:43:42
inflexible things and I felt like those
00:43:44
were my boundaries right for a very long
00:43:47
time they're these immovable things
00:43:49
again binary black and white yes no good
00:43:54
bad I think there's a lot of gray space
00:43:58
to be really for real I I just think
00:44:01
there's a lot of gray space in between
00:44:03
those and what I'm realizing is that
00:44:05
boundaries for me look different than
00:44:06
boundaries for you they look different
00:44:08
than boundaries from your neighbor they
00:44:10
look different from boundaries from your
00:44:12
spouse from your partner from your
00:44:14
friends
00:44:16
right so instead of looking at them as
00:44:18
like these dos and don'ts what I want to
00:44:21
do is kind of reflect on my own beliefs
00:44:24
and the and the things that I value in
00:44:26
my life
00:44:27
and I want to like set them according to
00:44:29
that and I also want to be
00:44:33
able to change and evolve over time and
00:44:36
to allow those boundaries to adjust and
00:44:38
change there are lots of things that I
00:44:40
could have shared today that are just
00:44:42
not things that I'm ready to talk
00:44:44
about there's probably things that I
00:44:46
wasn't ready to talk about that I shared
00:44:48
anyways and that's me breaking a
00:44:53
pound so
00:44:56
yeah we're learning okay that's the
00:44:58
whole point of this episode we're
00:44:59
learning we're growing we're evolving
00:45:02
we're healing if you're not
00:45:04
religious and you don't have religious
00:45:06
trauma like I do
00:45:09
um you know thank the Universe um do a
00:45:13
happy
00:45:15
dance if you're hearing this and you're
00:45:17
like I've got some of
00:45:18
that I I can't say how much this book
00:45:23
has been incredibly helpful and at least
00:45:26
just recognizing and identifying things
00:45:28
within myself I know that there's a lot
00:45:30
of other books there's a lot of other
00:45:32
teachers there's a lot of other
00:45:33
therapies there's a lot of other things
00:45:35
that I can do that I can continue to
00:45:37
grow um that I want to
00:45:40
do and I'm going to do them it's going
00:45:43
to be messy and it's going to be gross
00:45:45
and it's going to be hard but I'm going
00:45:47
to do them and I highly encourage you
00:45:49
guys to do them as
00:45:51
well so again that was a lot hope it
00:45:55
wasn't too much um I hope I didn't lose
00:45:57
too many of you along the way or if you
00:45:59
had to pause that you come
00:46:01
back
00:46:03
um and again this is just scratching the
00:46:05
surface of what we can unpack I just
00:46:07
picked three chapters out of this 13 14
00:46:09
chapter bug right to focus on these are
00:46:12
the things that I felt like most
00:46:13
impacted me were just like I had the
00:46:16
strongest gut reaction to these
00:46:18
things and
00:46:20
um yeah and I'm excited to hopefully
00:46:23
update you guys as I go through this
00:46:25
this year and kind of grow and change
00:46:27
and evolve and be a different person so
00:46:31
um I think that's it I think I'm going
00:46:33
to leave you with that okay and um you
00:46:36
know I guess before I say goodbye do me
00:46:39
a favor if you've made it this far like
00:46:41
engage with this content okay whether
00:46:43
it's liking the video or commenting or
00:46:46
subscribing or giving a five star review
00:46:48
or anything like that um following me on
00:46:52
socials exhs Club pretty much all the
00:46:55
socials you know or just picking up your
00:46:58
phone shooting me an email exhs
00:47:00
[email protected] share your story share
00:47:02
what you're working on maybe you
00:47:03
disagree with me that's okay
00:47:05
too um that's it I think that's all I
00:47:08
got okay so till next week peace
00:47:19
[Music]
00:47:26
[Music]
