In my previous post, I wrote about the five things I’m letting go of when it comes to parenting after, and this one I’d like to share what I’m hoping to bring into the New Year. And here we go!

Five things to bring into the New Year:

Sharing more of my religious trauma story

Often we think shielding our kids from our religious trauma means that we are silent about what has happened to us. If when we are triggered, we lash out in anger, or withdraw (fight/flight response) and that impacts our parenting over the long term, it is important that we get help so that these impacts of our religious trauma doesn’t negatively affect our parenting. Once we are taken care of, our bodies feel safe, and our nervous system regulated, then it is critically important that we actually share our religious trauma stories with our kids. First, because it is sharing our whole, authentic selves with them. So much of our own religious trauma comes from our parents or other authority figures hiding their trauma from us so that we are experiencing the negative impact of it without understanding the source of it. Giving our kids the reason we may become triggered at certain things helps them know they are not the reason for our pain. Second, it helps them see our resilience, and empowers them to know if they experience trauma in life (which they will), they have an example of how trauma can be healed and cycles can be broken. 

Each year my kids grow, they develop into more sophisticated individuals and can hear my stories with further nuance. They are also collecting more life experiences that can potentially resonate with my story. So this year, I hope I can share more or repeat some of my religious trauma history with them.

Reclaiming a piece of myself 

My word of the year for 2022 was “fashion.” It seems like a silly, frivolous thing to be intentional about, and it was. I didn’t share it with anyone, it was just a fun thing I decided I wanted to care about this year. I felt like after a lifetime of service and diminished self agency, that I deserved some “guilty pleasure” and finding fun ways to express myself through fashion seemed appropriate.

In February, Russia invaded Ukraine, and I can’t explain to you how devastated I was by this news. Every year, we wish for more peace on this planet earth and I think I had really hoped for it at the start of this year, and the war drove me into a dark space of cynicism and hopelessness for humanity. 

Fashion, retail therapy, dolling myself up, went from being a fun, frivolous pursuit directly into a coping mechanism. My anxiety was ratcheted up so high that I needed to find something concrete that I can control–my own body and what I was wearing. I recognize it’s a privilege to be able to do self care in these ways, but I am incredibly thankful it was accessible to me. 

As the year went on, my budget began to feel the strain of my “self care” but that also turned out to be a gift, because in meeting the finitude of my resources, I also had to dig deeper into my values because a budget is at its root a value statement. 

99% of religious trauma recovery is this work, finding pieces of ourselves and living into who we are. In fundamentalism, our true selves were buried beneath other people’s expectations and religious mandates. To REcover is to discover again who we were, what we like, who we want to be. In 2022, I recovered what colors and styles and items I enjoy in my wardrobe, I hope to recover more of myself in 2023. 

Learning a good somatic practice

I’ve spent many years in my life, on this blog, deconstructing my faith intellectually. This year I finally realized that I can change my mind all the day long but my body will still produce religious trauma responses unless I start to make her feel safe. Ironically, I realized that deconstructing faith intellectually, especially online, was contributing to my body feeling unsafe. This is why I’ve shifted away from arguing about theology online and focused more on somatic work with my small membership group (which you can join here!) 

What I am astounded by each month when we gather to do this work is how EASY they are. Breathing. We literally use that as a metaphor for ease. “It’s as easy as breathing.” But breath work makes all the difference in regulating our nervous system and finding safety in our bodies. 

Another one that Brian Peck from the Religious Trauma Institute taught me this last week is simply wrapping one arm underneath the armpit of the other side, and placing the other arm on the outside of the opposite arm. Kind of like a self hug. Try this exercise anywhere to notice how it feels in your body. 

I’m definitely going to keep learning and practicing somatic exercises into the New Year.

Delight in my kids 

In my previous post, I pledged to stop being afraid of passing on my religious trauma baggage to my kids. Instead, what I want to bring into the New Year is to delight in them. As parents, sometimes we justify our fears for them as love. And they are, but it is not a good life for us or for them when we are in a state of constant fear (ahem, fundamentalists). When I think about delighting in my kids, I don’t think of it as a pollyanna attitude where we are happy at them all the time. I think delight is a radical acceptance of exactly who they are. And each year my kids grow older, they are finding pieces of themselves in their life experiences and emerging more fully as who they are. What I want is to look for those things, those changes, that coming of age transformation in my kids and revel in it. 

Interdependence 

A lot of my work in recovery from religious trauma is learning to set boundaries. This work is to figure out who I am, what my boundaries are, and to set them. But in the end, boundaries don’t exist to box ourselves in, but to open up ourselves in a way that doesn’t require us to diminish ourselves. We teach our kids to draw good boundaries not to keep them away from us, but to allow us to love them in a way that does not hurt them. 

I find that I can’t know if my boundaries are solid if I am not showing up to my community and connecting with others. If the pandemic has shown us anything it’s that hyper individualism is a disease upon a disease. We have to lean on one another, for knowledge, for support, and for the pleasures of living our lives. I want to live with interdependence, giving of myself freely like my evangelical days, but this time, with higher awareness of my limits of time, energy, and self respect. May this be the year. 

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Parenting after religious trauma is HARD, but you do not have to do it ALONE. Imagine having a group of people who get it, who share the same toxicity of our high control religious baggage, who are parenting and being badass cycle breakers for our kids. There is incredible power in this kind of community and I have one of the best ones, if I may say so myself. My people are smart, kind and we are adamant about healing and recovery to stop harming ourselves, our kids, and our world. You can join us in this New Year–give yourself the gift of recovery. 

Join us HERE.